Hagens Berman Announces Lawsuit Claims Wide Range Of Apple Devices Infringe Patents For Screen Manipulation

Hagens Berman law firm announced that a lawsuit filed against Apple, Inc., claiming that the computing and consumer-products giant has built many of its devices including the iPhone and iPad using intellectual property owned by a Villanova, Penn. company that developed gesture recognition technology for touchscreens in the mid-1990s. Flatworld Interactives, LLC received U.S. Patent No. RE 43,318, which includes claims to touch screen based systems that allow users to manipulate images using gestures, such as selecting an image by touching it, and flicking images off of the screen. Hagens Berman's lawsuit was filed on Flatworld's behalf in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. It alleges that numerous Apple devices, including the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, iPod Nano, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air infringe the patent. The complaint also alleges that Apple knew about the patent but continued to sell the infringing products.