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17 August 2016Patents

Apple Time Machine given infringement all clear by Federal Circuit

Apple has survived an appeal in a patent dispute that targeted its Time Machine service after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit backed a lower court ruling of non-infringement.

In a decision handed down yesterday, August 16, the Federal Circuit said Apple had not infringed a patent covering backup and data storage.

The California-based technology company was accused of infringing US patent number 7,120,835, owned by US-based Farstone Technology.

Farstone sued Apple in 2013 having twice failed to convince it to acquire a licence for, or buy, the patent.

The lawsuit, filed at the US District Court for the Central District of California, sought an injunction against Time Machine, which creates backups of files that can be restored at a later date, plus triple damages and an ongoing royalty agreement.

Judge Otis Wright ruled that the patent didn’t adequately describe the invention.

Despite Farstone’s appeal against the decision, the Federal Circuit backed the lower court ruling without issuing an opinion.

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