A federal jury says didn’t infringe the patent of a 70-year-old electrical engineer who claims he came up with the idea for the smartphone, reports “Bloomberg” (http://tinyurl.com/pkno2bb).
The jury in Los Angeles has rejected the claim by NetAirus Technologies, the company owned by inventor Richard L. Ditzik, that the iPhone infringes its patent for a handheld device that combines computer and wireless-communication functions over both a Wi-Fi and cellular telephone network.
NetAirus Technologies purportedly filed the patent application in 1997 for a handheld device that combines computer and wireless-communications functions over both a local-area network and a wide-area network. Apple said in court filings that its Newton message pad, with add-on hardware, could perform the same functions as those claimed by NetAirus’s patent as early as 1994.