Patent troll sues Apple over FaceTime, auto-expiring voice Messages technology

“Stalwart patent troll Uniloc filed a pair of lawsuits over the weekend claiming technology used in flagship Apple communications products, namely FaceTime and iMessage, infringe on property initially developed by HP and Philips,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider. “Uniloc’s latest legal overture, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas on Saturday, leverages patents dating back to the early 2000s.”
“The first suit targets Apple’s FaceTime video conferencing service with a U.S. Patent No. 8,539,552 for a ‘System and method for network based policy enforcement of intelligent-client features,'” Campbell reports. “Filed with the USPTO in 2003 by Hewlett-Packard, the ‘552 patent was signed over to 3Com that same year. HP regained control of the IP, and more than 1,500 other assets, as part of its acquisition of 3Com in 2010. Uniloc’s main Luxembourg arm took control of the IP in 2017 before signing it over to Uniloc 2017 LLC in May of this year.”
“In its second suit, Uniloc takes aim at iMessage audio features with U.S. Patent No. 7,020,252 for a ‘Group audio message board,'” Campbell reports. “Saturday’s lawsuits were filed a month after Uniloc’s last play at Apple, which perhaps not coincidentally involved an HP patent and FaceTime. In 2017 alone, Uniloc sued over Maps, Apple ID, remote software updates, AirPlay, autodialing, battery technology, device wake-up, step tracking, AirPlay, the Home app, the Apple TV Remote app and Apple Watch GPS capabilities.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Patent troll Uniloc is mosquito-like in its persistence.
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