USITC to scrutinise Apple and Amazon after NPE complaint
The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has instituted an investigation into Apple and Amazon following a complaint from an Irish company and its US-based licensee.
On Tuesday, April 2, the ITC announced its plan to investigate the two companies, along with telecoms company Verizon, following a complaint from Ireland-based Data Scape, which appears to be a non-practising entity, and licensee C-Scape Consulting.
Data Scape and C-Scape Consulting filed their complaint in late February, accusing the respondents of infringing US patent numbers 7,720,929; 7,617,537; and 8,386,581.
The patents, previously owned by Sony, cover the transfer of selected data from one device to a second device, by the use of management information.
Apple is infringing the patents through the sale of its MacBooks, iPads and iPods and the provision of iCloud, while Amazon is infringing through the sale of its Kindle, Fire and Echo devices, said Data Scape’s filing.
Verizon’s smartphones, which use the allegedly infringing Verizon Cloud application, brought the telecoms company into the dispute.
Data Scape and C-Scape have asked the ITC to issue a limited exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders.
In late December 2018, Data Scape sued Apple at the US District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division, for infringing six patents (including the ‘929 and ‘537 patents) directed to data and communication systems.
In the same month, Data Scape also took music streaming companies Spotify and Pandora Music, and technology company Dell to court in the US over their cloud-based data storage and synchronisation services.
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