Apple has just been named co-dependent (along with nearly three dozen other companies) in a patent infringement lawsuit yesterday relating to spam filtering technology.
“Email as we know it would essentially stop working if it weren’t for InNova’s invention,” said InNova’s lawyer “More than 80 percent of email is spam, which is why companies use InNova’s invention rather than forcing employees to wade through billions of useless emails. Unfortunately, the defendants appear to be profiting from this invention without any consideration for InNova’s legal patent rights.”
And what is this amazing invention Apple stole from InNova? InNova came up with the idea of using a contextual database to identify emails a user wants from unsolicited ones according to conditions like whether or not a “From” address had been emailed before.
Spam filtering’s an amazing invention, no doubt, but it takes more to invent something than being the first to register they had the idea with the government. This is a totally scurrilous case, filed by parent troll InNova Patent Licensing in the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall, well-known as a friendly court for pursing patent infringement cases. The list of defendants include Google, Dell, HP, IBM, Yahoo… as well as the likes of JC Penney, Snapple and Dr. Pepper. Really. Dr. Pepper!
Let’s hope Apple destroys these bozos.
