Patent troll sues Apple, Samsung, SanDisk over MP3 players

Texas MP3 Technologies, a recently formed company that appears to only exist on paper, has hit Apple, Samsung, and SanDisk with patent-infringement lawsuits. The suits were filed on Feb. 16 in Marshall, Texas, a city popular with patent enforcers because of speedy trials and juries that lean in favor of the plaintiff. Texas MP3 Technologies—which shares a street address with one of its lawyers in Marshall—alleges infringement on U.S. patent 7,065,417, which was awarded in June 2006 to multimedia chip-maker SigmaTel and covers “an MPEG portable sound reproducing system and a method for reproducing sound data compressed using the MPEG method.” SigmaTel reportedly sold the patent in August 2006 to a “Dallas-based patent licensing agency” because it said the agency would be better able to take advantage of its potential value.