[NewsPoster]

Apple is being sued for alleged patent infringement over the way it handles the transmission of digital media between devices. German patent house Papst Licensing claims Apple infringes on four patents concerning data transfers with its iOS devices, in a lawsuit filed with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on Monday, with the company apparently warning Apple of the potential infringement for one of the patents in 2007.

Spotted by AppleInsider, the four patents specifically discuss ways to efficiently manage data under the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) and Media Transfer Protocols (MTP), specifically including the compensation for transmission delays and using checks against nodes to dictate the transmission rate. Papst claims it told Apple about patent number 6,473,399 in 2007 and entered into a dialogue over the matter until 2010, but Apple ultimately decided to continue with device production despite this apparent infringement.

Three other patents, numbers 8,504,746, 8,966,144, and 9,189,437, are related to the earlier '399 patent and are included in the lawsuit for similar infringement claims. Papst alleges Apple was actively monitoring its patent prosecutions, and so had knowledge of the existence of the other three patents, despite the earlier discussions revolving around the '399 patent.

In the suit, Papst demands a trial by jury, past and future damages with a potential tripling for willful infringement, attorney's fees, and court costs.

[I-ku-u]

Regarding the '399 patent, I debugged 10+ year old code in '98 (give or take a year or two) that implemented what I read there - code that shortly later went open source. Assuming my understanding is correct, if that patent isn't invalidated, I'll be *very* surprised.