Apple Inc. (AAPL), the world’s most valuable technology company, doesn’t infringe the patent of a 70-year-old electrical engineer who claims he came up with the idea for the smartphone, a federal jury in Los Angeles said.
The jury rejected the claim by NetAirus Technologies LLC, the company owned by inventor Richard L. Ditzik, that Apple’s iPhone infringes its patent for a handheld device that combines computer and wireless-communication functions over both a Wi-Fi and cellular telephone network.
The trial was limited to damages NetAirus could seek for infringement by Apple’s iPhone 4 since October of last year, when the patent was recertified with substantial changes in the language of the claims. NetAirus has filed a separate lawsuit for alleged patent infringement by the iPad and iPhone models that Apple started selling since the suit was filed in 2010.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, argued during the trial that Ditzik initially filed a patent application for a handset that used a laptop computer to make phone calls. The inventor revised the patent to include features, such as the handset functioning as a personal digital assistant and being able to send e-mail, he had read about in magazines, Apple said.
The case is NetAirus Technologies LLC v. Apple Inc., 10-03257, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).
To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in federal court in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net; Valerie Reitman in federal court in Los Angeles at valeriereitman@yahoo.com
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