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Apple Sued for Promoting iPhone as Ebook Reader

The newest passenger on the Apple Lawsuit Express is Swiss-based MONEC Holding Ltd, a company accusing Apple of patent infringement, unfair trade practices, monopolization, and tortious interference by allowing Ebook reader applications to be distributed through the App Store. By doing so, the lawsuit alleges, Apple is violating the company's patent for an, "Electronic device, preferably an electronic book."

The lawsuit was first reported by AppleInsider, and was filed in a Virginia Federal court by MONEC. The firm is in the business of developing, "mobile, globally usable communication solutions," and the company filed for the patent on October 22, 1999. It was granted January 1st, 2002.

MONEC's device as described in the patent is for a digital book reader with a touchscreen that is capable of receiving books through a radio (wireless) signal. Through that "station for receiving and sending signals by way of a radio network [that] allows the exchange of electronic data," the device can receive, "for example, E-mails, faxes, data from the Internet or the like, which can be visualized on the display."

In the Abstract for the patent, the company said, "The display preferably provided as an LCD-display has dimensions such that with it approximately one page of a book can be illustrated at normal size, this display being integrated in a flat, frame-like housing."

Further specifics were added in the Description of the patent application, which said, "The electronic device according to the invention provides the considerable advantage that it may have a very light and easily portable construction, can be used very universally and at the same time has a relatively large display."

How well this does, or does not, apply to the iPhone is up the courts to determine, but MONEC's lawsuit claims that by allowing Ebook readers at the App Store -- AppleInsider said that specific apps were not named, but there is Amazon's Kindle for iPhone and a collection of books called Classics on the App Store now -- Apple is promoting the iPhone as a digital book reader, a concept that violates their patent.

MONEC is seeking unspecified damages and attorney fees in its suit.

5 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

azarkon said:

Clearly the iPhone does not violate a patent where the screen is designed to “display approximately one page of a book at normal size”  Sorry, but the iPhone even the size of a small paperback.  And any company that is seriously claiming that a patent for an e-book reader having an LCD screen is actually going to be a moneymaker is not guilty of intelligence, so I suppose they can be excused for hiring a lawyer who writes a patent which uses a lot of words to say nothing and then sues with such a harebrained theory that because a LCD-screened wireless device which has the flexibility to run 3rd party applications is a patent violation because someone else wrote e-book software for it…


P.S.  show of hands… does anyone actually use faxes anymore?

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geoduck said:

Why didn’t they sue Amazon a year or two ago? They have a real dedicated e-book reader that is much more in line with their claims.

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furbies said:

Did they actually design, build, test, modify and then take to market an e-book reader ?

Or are they just “Patent Trolls”

A patent should expire after after a few years unless the patent holder can demonstrate that they are actually serious about using the ideas/technology!

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Steve said:

I would also like to sue Apple, Sony, Nokia, IBM, Carrier, Vornado, Atchison-Topeka-Santa Fe, et. al. based on my patent for “Useful Electronic Device”. This patents my invention of a handheld or portable or transportable device or machine which uses electricity to facilitate any of several functions that can be of benefit to the user, including but not limited to visual or audible information display or transmission (including radios and e-book readers and computers), visual or audible information reception and encoding, wireless or wired information transmission, data processing, heating, air-conditioning, transportation, or any other useful function. These companies are in clear violation of my patent which I have spent untold hours thinking about and filing legal papers on, though not actually developing.

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morwen said:

I was reading ebooks on my Treo years ago, why aren’t they suing Palm?  Is this just because Apple’s actually _advertising_ that you can read ebooks on their iPhone and not the fact that you can?  Which you can do on a Kindle, a Palm of pretty much any type, and any of the myriad devices that ereader.com supplies software for?  Sounds more like they think they have a patent on advertizing ereaders than actual ereaders.

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