{"id":80601,"date":"2019-02-06T17:11:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T17:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/19\/02\/06\/apple-goes-on-legal-offensive-against-usb-charging-tech-patent-troll"},"modified":"2019-02-06T17:11:30","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T17:11:30","slug":"apple-goes-on-legal-offensive-against-usb-charging-tech-patent-troll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/apple-goes-on-legal-offensive-against-usb-charging-tech-patent-troll\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple goes on legal offensive against USB charging tech patent troll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- font size selector, BEGIN --> <span class=\"cfix\">\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p class=\"gray small byline\"> By <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#f98b9f90979e988ab99e94989095d79a9694\">Roger Fingas<\/a> <br \/><span class=\"gray\">Wednesday, February 06, 2019, 09:11 am PT (12:11 pm ET)<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span><span class=\"article-leader\">In a twist, Apple this week took preemptive legal action against a firm called Fundamental Innovation Systems International, hoping to deter any patent lawsuits related to USB charging.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<div class=\"article-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/apple-goes-on-legal-offensive-against-usb-charging-tech-patent-troll.jpg\" alt=\"iPad Pro and Lightning cable\" height=\"572\" class=\"lazy\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/apple-goes-on-legal-offensive-against-usb-charging-tech-patent-troll-1.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"minor2 small gray\"><\/span><\/div>\n<p>The company has filed suit through the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asking it to declare that it doesn&#8217;t infringe on patents FISI acquired from BlackBerry. A formal complaint speculates that it be could be the next target for FISI, which has already used legal pressure to secure licenses from corporations like LG and Samsung.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Defendants have claimed, through letters, claim charts, telephone calls and in-person meetings with Apple personnel in this District, that certain Apple products infringe the Patents-in-Suit and that Apple requires a license to the Patents-in-Suit,&#8221; lawyers for Apple wrote. &#8220;However, Apple&#8217;s products do not infringe the Patents-in-Suit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A key contention in Apple&#8217;s defense is that many of its devices and adapters use <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/19\/01\/16\/rumor-claims-2019-iphone-will-get-10mp-truedepth-camera-stick-to-lightning\">Lightning connectors<\/a>, instead of adhering strictly to the USB 2.0 standards cited in FISI&#8217;s patents. Lightning cables do tap USB for power and data, but have custom endpoints and authentication technology.<\/p>\n<p>Apple is nominally requesting a jury trial, but if its lawsuit has its intended effect, FISI may be forced to settle before that point.<\/p>\n<p>Apple is regularly targeted by outfits like FISI, which produce no actual product and depend on lawsuits and royalties to make money. Normally they&#8217;re defeated or settle out of court, but Apple did take a major hit recently when the federal U.S. Court of Appeals <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/19\/01\/15\/apple-loses-appeal-of-439-million-verdict-in-favor-of-virnetx\">denied an appeal<\/a> of a 2016 jury verdict in favor of VirnetX, putting it on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 By Roger Fingas Wednesday, February 06, 2019, 09:11 am PT (12:11 pm ET) In a twist, Apple this week took preemptive legal action against a firm called Fundamental Innovation Systems International, hoping to deter any patent lawsuits related to USB charging. The company has filed suit through the U.S. District Court for the Northern [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-insider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}