The technology allowing iPhone users to skim through screens and Web sites is at the heart of a new lawsuit. Picsel Technologies, a mobile software developer, said Apple’s handset and iPod touch infringe its graphics acceleration technology.
The lawsuit, filed in Delaware U.S. District Court, asks Picsel Technologies be awarded treble damages based on the number of iPhones sold.
Unlike many patent trolls, the Picsel lawsuit includes a number of high-profile licensees. The company named iPhone rivals Palm and Motorola among the 250 companies using the graphics acceleration patent.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
