This one is a doozy even by the standards of the runaway smartphone litigation of the past few years. A New Jersey company claims it owns 3G technology and wants the entire industry to pay up.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles, Golden Bridge Technologies claims that devices like Apple’s iPhone and Barnes & Noble’s Nook violate a patent it received in the year 2000.
US Patent No. 6,075,793 describes a “High efficiency spread spectrum system and method.” It relates to a highly technical process involving chips that share data sequence signals across channels.
In its complaint, Golden Bridge provides a history of cell phone technology and says it contributed to essential features of the emerging 3G standards that began to be developed in the 1990’s.
Owner of a patent that forms part of a standard are typically required to license it to others on reasonable terms.
Other companies named in the suit include Research In Motion, HTC, Sony, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard.
Here’s a copy of the complaint:
Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user Jacob Bøtter

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