Amazon recently had a grand launch of its Kindle Fire, which made other competing tablets look pale. But the fame seems to have a roadblock even before its out and available for the users to buy them. Kindle Fire is a target in a patent suit and with this, Amazon is a new entrant even to the patent wars. There have been many patent infringement lawsuits filed till now, but this one would be different as in this case, the lawsuit has been filed for a product which is not yet released. The Amazon tablet was unveiled last week, which was highly anticipated by the makers. It was said that it would be available only after November 15th.
Talking about the lawsuit, Smartphone Technologies LLC claims that Amazon with its tablet has infringed their intellectual property. Smartphone Technologies LLC is owned by Acacia Research Corporation, a known patent collector of sorts.
The company has claimed that, in all four points would be considered in the lawsuit. However, the fifth one would be in regards to the new Kindle Touch 3G. The list includes the following patents:
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A patent covering the act of tapping an icon on the tablet’s touch-sensitive display to perform an action
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A patent intended for Palm over displaying and manipulating multiple calendars on a PDA
The second patent mentioned here states that it was specifically designed for Palm, but like the other mentions patent, this even seems to be a common feature found on every tablet. In fact, it has been important features of a number of mobile devices available today.
Recently, President Obama had signed the America Invests Act into law, which would shift the patent reforms from the first-to-invent system to the first-to-file route. Such patent reforms were in need even as Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt recently said at Dreamforce 2011 that according to him patents have been handed out too generally in the past. Schmidt even noted that he would like to see a more systematic approach to the approval process. It seems the terms now would be appreciated by Schmidt.
PaidContent.org noted that this is not the first time Acacia has played a claim on a company. in the past, it has hit up a number of other smartphone manufacturers including blackberry creator Research in Motion (RIM) and Apple. The end result in most of the patent litigations has forced companies into multi-million dollar settlements. An instance was noted when RIM had to pay out $612 million to settle its case against another patent licensing firm NTP. Acacia’s claim against Apple has not paid off, but the two continue down duke it out.
For Kindle Fire, it if hurdles the roadblock, the tech world would see the new tablet shipping to their owners on November 15th as the preorders are being taken up currently. The company had announced its tablet priced at $199. Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos had even announced that its original Kindle will sell for $79, and a $99 Kindle touch, which is also available in 3G for $149.