Another day, another lawsuit. Apple is being sued by Data Engine Technologies for patent infringement, reports “The Mac Observer (www.macobserver.com). The suit claims Apple’s Numbers spreadsheet software violates its patent (number 5463724) for an “improved spreadsheet interface with user-familiar objects.”
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. The summary of the patent in question reads:
“An electronic spreadsheet system of the present invention includes a notebook interface having a plurality of notebook pages, each of which may contain a spread of information cells, or other desired page type (e.g., Graphs page). Methods are provided for rapidly accessing and processing information on the different pages, including displaying a plurality of page identifiers for selecting individual pages, and further including a preferred syntax for referencing information. Additional methods are provided for editing cells and blocks of cells.”