Apple Fires Back at Affinity
| November 23, 2009
Affinity Labs of Texas sued Apple earlier this year, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,187,947, 7,440,772 and 7,486,926, from the sales of Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPod Touch. Judge Clark transferred the case to the Northern District of California in August.
On November 13, Apple filed requests for inter partes reexamination of each of the Affinity patents. The PTO is expected to answer the requests by early February.
For good measure, Apple also filed a request for inter partes reexamination of Affinity’s U.S. Patent No. 7,324,833, even though Apple has not been sued on that patent. The ‘833 patent relates to a system for connecting an audio player to a car sound system and is the subject of a suit in Texas against a series of auto-makers.