Uniloc says Apple's iMessage technology infringes on its patents
The lawsuit claimed patents 7,535,890, 8,995,433, 8,724,622 and 8,243,723 cover the voice recording and transmission feature in Messages, and that Apple isn't licensing the technology. Uniloc is asking the court for the usual unspecified damages, legal expense reimbursement, and other relief.
If you aren't familiar with Uniloc, that probably means you have better things to do with your time that keep up with serial patent trolls. But since we're all here, how about a quick rundown:
Uniloc is a patent holding company with a long list of deep pocket infringement cases against companies such as Activision, Microsoft, Rackspace, Symantec, and Sony. It also has a portfolio of demo-to-buy apps that were bundled with new PCs. The company was founded after Ric Richardson created and patented a copy protection technology in 1992.
The company ran afoul of the Android community earlier this month when one developer took to the Web to say he was being sued for uploading an app to the Google Play store. According to that lawsuit, Uniloc owns the idea of the Google Play store, and as such developers need to pay up. The defendant in the case, Austin Meyer, posted a video on YouTube talking about the multi-year lawsuit and the many developers Uniloc is targeting.