Ericsson has escalated its legal dispute with Apple, Bloomberg reports. The Swedish phone maker announced that it plans to file seven new lawsuits in a U.S. court as well as a request to the U.S.
International Trade Commission to block Apple products from being sold in the U.S. Last month, Apple and Ericsson filed several suits against each other over LTE patents, after Apple’s license to use Ericsson’s technology expired and re-negotiations broke down between the two companies. Ericsson’s latest series of complaints allege that Apple has infringed as many as 41 patents related to mobile device communications, user interfaces, battery conservation, and the operating system itself.
In other patent litigation news, after Apple was ordered to pay $532.9 million to Smartflash, LLC earlier this week, Reuters reports that the Texas-based patent licensing company has launched a second lawsuit against the larger company, over the same patents’ continued use in devices that were introduced after the original case began. The $532.9m settlement in the original case was awarded to Smartflash as a result of Apple using the company’s patents in all devices capable of accessing iTunes up to the point the lawsuit was filed, but it excluded the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPad Air 2. This second salvo by Smartflash is intended to make Apple pay the royalties deemed necessary by the original case, applied to these newer devices, as well.
