Another day, another lawsuit. A “Texas shell company” dubbed Touchscreen Gestures is suing Apple and RIM for patent infringement regarding smartphone gestures such as dragging and double tapping, reports “paidContent.org” (http://macte.ch/uyDpn).
The lawsuit was filed in East Texas. The patents were issued in 2007 to a Taiwanese maker of touchpad technology. A related suit accuses Samsung’s Galaxy tablet of violating the same patents.
“It’s unclear how the patents made their way from Sentelic to the Texas court room,” notes “paidContent.org.” “The most likely explanation is that they were purchased by one of a growing number of professional ‘patent trolls’ — firms that don’t make anything but amass patents in order to make a business of suing deep-pocketed companies like Apple.”