The United States International Trade Commission is investigating accusations by Saxon Innovations that five mobile handset companies are infringing its patents and should be barred from importing handheld devices into the US. The companies include Nokia (NYSE: NOK), RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), Palm (NSDQ: PALM), HTC and Panasonic. Saxon obtained the patents by buying them from AMD in 2007, reports Computerworld, listing the patents as:
— one for a keypad monitor that can be activated via external clock signals (issued in August 1993)
— one for an apparatus that can disable so-called interrupt masks within processors (issued in June 1996)
— one for a device and methodology for supporting communications between the different processors in a multiprocessor architecture (issued in March 1997).
The ITC isn’t making any decision as to whether the complaint by Saxon has any merit, but if the cease-and-desist and exclusion orders Saxon are seeking are agreed it will have much the same effect as if the ITC had ruled in Saxon’s favor — by the time the case is actually heard the handsets will be obsolete.
(ITC Release)
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post