A new round of patent lawsuits in the tech industry have now hit the court system. The company WiLAN, which has a long history of legal actions, announced today that it has filed complaints against Apple, Dell, HP, HTC, Kyocera, Novatel, Sierra Wireless and Alcatel-Lucent. In its press release, WiLAN, " ... claims that these companies have infringed and continue to infringe WiLAN’s U.S. Patent No. RE37,802 (“the ‘802’ Patent”) related to CDMA and HSPA and U.S. Patent No. 5,282,222 (“the ‘222’ Patent”) related to Wi-Fi and LTE." Details about how the companies specifically infringed on WiLAN"s patents were not revealed in its press release.
The lawsuits have been filled at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. As AppleInsider points out, filing these lawsuits in this particular district was no coincidence. The Tyler Division has had a history of favorable verdicts for the plaintiffs in previous patent lawsuit cases. The lawsuit seeks both damages and an injunction against the companies to stop them from offering products that use the disputed technology.
Founded in 1992, WiLAN has had a long history of patent infringement lawsuits against a number of well known companies. It currently owns the rights to over 1,400 patents. News.com reports that Apple was the subject of another one of WiLAN"s infringement lawsuits back in 2007 along with 21 other companies. Earlier this year it struck again, suing Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Motorola, Sony, and Toshiba, among others, over a patent related to Bluetooth wireless technology.