James Delahunty
19 Apr 2006 19:52
Apple Computer Inc. has been hit with a countersuit issued by Burst.com. Burst had sworn to respond to an lawsuit brought against it in January by Apple with a counterclaim for patent infringement. Burst approached Apple in 2004 in an attempt to agree licenses for the use of its technology. The company's legal team informed Apple that it is infringing its patents, and that it would launch action. Of course, Apple denied that it is infringing the patents.
The company sued Burst in the US District Court in San Francisco requesting declaratory relief to determine the patents invalid. Now Burst claims that Apple's iTunes store, iPod line-up and software titles infringe at least four of the company's patents. The patents in question are US Patents 4,963,995; 5,995,705; 5,057,932 and 5,164,839.
Burst settled its patent and antitrust suit against Microsoft last year, which saw Microsoft taking a licence to Burst's patents and paying $60 million. The company now claims that its technol0ogy is the reason behind Apple's growing success in the past few years, and now it wants a cut.
Source:
The Inquirer