MIT sues Apple over patent from 1997

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has sued Apple and its suppliers for infringing on a patent that dates back to 1997. MIT claims that Apple's computers and mobile devices use semiconductor wafers produced using a laser cutting technique that was patented by two men around 15 years ago. MIT filed the suit in Boston federal court claiming that Micron Technology knew about the patent when the company used it to provide Apple with DRAM semiconductor chips for products like the iPhone and iPad.

The patent covers a method for cutting a link between two interconnected circuits. The patent was issued in 2000 to an engineering professor in Israel named Joseph Bernstein, and his fellow inventor Zhihui Duan. The pair filed the patent in 1997. But MIT says that it has the rights to the patent and is due damages and royalties on all Apple products containing chips that were produced using the patented technology.

In a similar situation, back in 2013 Boston University sued Apple claiming that the tech titan infringed on a patent from 1997 that covered a small electronic component. Boston University used a law firm in Texas that gets paid on a contingency basis to sue Apple and other tech firms. The company sought a ban of the Apple iPhone 5 and one tech analyst predicted that the suit could be settled for as much as $75 million just to stop it from being a nuisance to Apple.

   MIT v Apple

source: Scribd via GigaOm
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