Florida Man Sues Apple for $10+ Billion, Says iOS Devices Copy His 1992 Drawings

MacRumors ^ | June 28, 2016

[Swordmaker]

Florida resident Thomas S. Ross has filed a lawsuit against Apple this week, claiming that the iPhone, iPad, and iPod infringe upon his 1992 invention of a hand-drawn "Electronic Reading Device" (ERD). The court filing claims the plaintiff was "first to file a device so designed and aggregated," nearly 15 years before the first iPhone.

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Between May 23, 1992 and September 10, 1992, Ross designed three hand-drawn technical drawings of the device, primarily consisting of flat rectangular panels with rounded corners that "embodied a fusion of design and function in a way that never existed prior to 1992."

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What Ross contemplated, was a device that could allow one to read stories, novels, news articles, as well as look at pictures, watch video presentations, or even movies, on a flat touch-screen that was back-lit. He further imagined that it could include communication functions, such as a phone and a modem, input/output capability, so as to allow the user to write notes, and be capable of storing reading and writing material utilizing internal and external storage media. He also imagined that the device would have batteries and even be equipped with solar panels.

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Ross applied for a utility patent to protect his invention in November 1992, but the application was declared abandoned in April 1995 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after he failed to pay the required application fees. He also filed to copyright his technical drawings with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2014.

While the plaintiff claims that he continues to experience "great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money," he has demanded a jury trial and is seeking restitution no less than $10 billion and a royalty of up to 1.5% on Apple's worldwide sales of infringing devices.

Ross v. Apple, Inc. was filed with the Florida Southern District Court on June 27. The case number is 0:2016cv61471.

Article Link: Florida Man Sues Apple for for 1992 non-Invention

[aMorePerfectUnion]

"Scotty, meet me in the transporter room." I can assure you, that will get my attention. 😀😃😂😁😎😆

I'll let you go first!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Ha!! My dearly beloved ancestors, Adam and Eve, decided to breathe “air,” a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen plus a few other trace gases. Every air breather on the planet owes me BIG TIME. I have their original chemical equations in the attic...bear with me, it’ll take a bit of time to find them.

[Mark17]

"Scotty, meet me in the transporter room." I can assure you, that will get my attention. 😀😃😂😁😎😆

I'll let you go first!

LOL. I didn't say I wanted to try it, I just want to see it. Someone else can try it. 😀

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

Okay, you can play with the Transporter. All I want is a man-portable Phaser.

Instead of the SSS (Shoot, Shovel, Shush) System for dealing with varmits, you hit ‘em with that outfit and merely sweep a little dirt over the scorch marks.

I don’t recall there was ever any muzzle blast out of even the BIG ship-mounted phaser, which makes it even better.

[Rome2000]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicator_(Star_Trek)

[Svartalfiar]

He probably wont win because he abandoned his patent, but it is probably a valid claim otherwise because he was able to patent it before Apple and its possible Apple got the idea from this patent.

Not really. He has a drawing that describes a couple things the device does. He doesn't in any way describe the how, which is the point of a patent. Even if his 'patent' was still active, he has nothing in the drawings that is actually some kind of IP.

[Mark17]

I don’t recall there was ever any muzzle blast out of even the BIG ship-mounted phaser, which makes it even better.

I bet the Navy could use some photon torpedos. That would make them unbeatable. 😀

[Swordmaker]

Your intellectual property is yours whether you file the necessary paperwork to protect it or not. It will just be much harder to prove in court that it IS your intellectual property if you didn’t file the paperwork.

Uh, no. You can claim a copyright with out filing for a copyright. That does NOT apply to inventions which must be patented. Patents must be registered to be enforceable.

[Swordmaker]

Your intellectual property is yours whether you file the necessary paperwork to protect it or not. It will just be much harder to prove in court that it IS your intellectual property if you didn’t file the paperwork.

Uh, no. You can claim a copyright with out filing for a copyright. That does NOT apply to inventions which must be patented. Patents must be registered to be enforceable.

[Swordmaker]

Okay, you can play with the Transporter. All I want is a man-portable Phaser.

Unfortunately, the Transporter and the phaser are, in their first models, are basically indistinguishable in results.

[Swordmaker]

Something is very fishy about Ross' drawings that tells me that he is a fraud! He specifies the "black and white or color LCD screens" on his 1992 invention are "LED backlit", a technology that was not even on anyone's horizon in 1992! In fact, in 1992, LEDs were essentially any color you wanted, if they were red or green. The white LED was not even developed until 1995, and the lumen out put was far too low to even be considered for a backlight. The first use of LEDs as an LCD screen backlight was not developed until 2003, and commercially in 2004! Yet Ross claims his device in 1992 omnisciently and confidently claims that LCD screens are LED backlit! How?

Easy, the drawing had to have been done sometime these past few years since these technologies were developed. . . this guy is a fraud and his claims are frauds.

[Swordmaker]

Ping to my previous post on fraud

[dennisw]

sue the gaye bastards!!! at Cupertino!!!!