Tuesday, November 07, 2017

Corephotonics Sues Apple for Dual Lens Zoom Patent Infringement

MacRumors: Corephotonics has filed a lawsuit against Apple alleging that the iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 Plus infringe upon four of its patents: US 9,402,032, US 9,568,712, US 9,185,291, and US 9,538,152.

The two iPhones are accused in using patented telephoto lens design, optical zoom method, and a method for fusing images from the wide-angle and telephoto lenses. From the lawsuit:

"As one of its first acts as a company, Corephotonics reached out to Apple in the hopes of establishing a strategic partnership. Corephotonics received many encouraging reports and positive feedback from Apple about its technology, but the parties never concluded a license to the Corephotonics technology.

In fact, after one failed effort to negotiate a license, Apple's lead negotiator expressed contempt for Corephotonics’ patents, telling Dr. Mendlovic and others that even if Apple infringed, it would take years and millions of dollars in litigation before Apple might have to pay something.
"

Meanwhile, Corephotonics site publishes a comparison of its newer folded optical zoom camera images with ones of iPhone 7+ and other popular smartphones:

Corephotonics Hummingbird reference design
Corephotonics Hawkeye folded optics zoom reference design

4 comments:

  1. Good luck! Be my guest!

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  2. Corephotonics doesn't have the resources to see the lawsuit through. But Samsung does! I'd think it's yet another attempt to get Samsung to acquire them (i.e., see if the lawsuit holds and then use that as yet another candy for Samsung). WDUT?

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  3. "Apple's lead negotiator expressed contempt for Corephotonics’ patents, telling Dr. Mendlovic and others that even if Apple infringed, it would take years and millions of dollars in litigation before Apple might have to pay something."

    Large US companies will openly appropriate and use tech that belongs to smaller companies, knowing it will take millions of dollars for anyone to defend themselves. This is one of the many results of everything consolidating into only a few tech conglomerates.

    Like trust busting of the early 20th century, new busting needs to take place in the 21st at Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. These companies hold too much power and have too much arrogance.

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  4. It makes me really sick to see the way Apple brazenly violates others IP. If I was an inventor I would stay clear of doing business with them. Just look at what they done to Imagination. They practically forced the company (which was doing quite well) to put itself up for sale just because they wanted their IP for free. There needs to be some scheme, fund or mechanism put in place to enable small companies or individuals to defend the IP from tech giants without the fear of financial ruination.

    ReplyDelete

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