Patent firm acquires Sony and Nokia patents to sue HTC and RIM and Apple

As if HTC needed any more patent troubles to deal with, there’s yet another patent holding firm that’s come out of the woodwork to sue HTC and BlackBerry maker RIM for infringing on 11 and 12 patents, respectively. The patents at hand relate to mobile technologies that control how phone calls are connected, noise-sensitive volume control, and compressing image data, just to name a few. The company, known as MobileMedia Ideas LLC., filed its lawsuits against both RIM and HTC separately on March 31, 2010 in a Texas court. [Update] Today, we’ve come across new court documents that confirm MMI is also suing Apple over 14 patents that were apparently sourced from Nokia and Sony.

But, that’s just the beginning of the story – digging a little deeper reveals some interesting information about the purpose of MMI and CEO Lawrence A. Horn. To be more specific, the patents in question and the formation of MMI have questionable histories.

Before we get into the actual patents at stake here, it’s interested to see where MMI is coming from. The company was apparently formed just this past January 4, 2010 in the state of Delaware. That in and of itself wouldn’t be too interesting if not for the fact that MMI is suing RIM and HTC (and now Apple) for infringing on patents that were issued long before MMI came into existence – at least one patent dates back to 1996 and all are dated long before MMI became a business entity. So, how does the company have patents to complain about?

Well, that brings us to the next piece of this puzzle. The lawsuits mention that all the patents in questions were “assigned” to MMI on January 11, 2010 – nary a week after the company was formed. To be clear, MMI was never the original owner of any of these patents. It would seem CEO Horn, a lawyer no less, incorporated the company with the intention of looking for potential patent lawsuits. This reasoning meshes well with MMI’s mission statement:

The acquisition, development, administration and management of intellectual property rights and any other lawful acts or activities.

So, where did these patents come from? Well, that’s yet another interesting line of questioning. The patents were apparently issued to either Nokia or Sony. The patent documents verify this in the “assignee” field. That’s right, MMI is suing mobile phone manufacturers over patents that were originally held by other companies either wholly or partially involved in the mobile space!

Now, why would two huge corporations assign their patents to a brand spankin’ new company with no previous experience in tech IPs? We have no idea, but it turns out that Horn is also the CEO of MPEGLA, which is a “patent pool” that lists on its website the following description:

Independent intellectual property rights management

Packaging patent pools

Helping to make markets for intellectual property that maximize profits for intellectual property owners and make utilization of intellectual property affordable to manufacturers, consumers and other users

MPEG LA is neither patent owner nor patent user

Our goal is to provide a service that brings all parties together so that technical innovations can be made widely available at a reasonable price.

MPEG LA is audited annually in accordance with SAS 70 Type II

We bring expertise in consensus-building and identifying and harnessing market demand

We educate patent holders on the benefits of joining patent pools

We educate patent users on the benefits of using licensed intellectual property and patent pool licenses

It’s not clear if Nokia or Sony donated these patents, or if they were sold outright to MMI. But, the relationships between MPEGLA and MMI and the history behind them is enough to pique our interest. Mr. Horn seems to be in the business of building patent pools. We’ll stop short of guessing the motives (we’d rather let you come to your own conclusions). With that said, it’s hard to imagine big dogs like Sony or Nokia selling patents just to turn a quick buck or two.

Now, let’s take a look at the patents that MMI is suing RIM over:

• United States Patent No. 5,479,476: “Mobile telephone having groups of user adjustable operating characteristics for facilitating adjustment of several operating characteristics”
  • Link to patent US5479476 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 5,845,219: “Mobile station having priority call altering function during silent service mode”
  • Link to patent US5845219 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,055,439: “Mobile telephone user interface”
  • Link to patent US6055439 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,253,075: “Method and apparatus for incoming call rejection”
  • Link to patent US6253075 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,427,078: “Device for personal communications, data collection and data processing, and a circuit card”
  • Link to patent US6427078 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. Re. 39231: “Communication terminal equipment and call incoming control method”
  • No patent link available
• United States Patent No. 5,732,390: “Speech signal transmitting and receiving apparatus with noise sensitive volume control”
  • Link to patent US5732390 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 5,737,394: ““Portable telephone apparatus having a plurality of selectable functions activated by the use of dedicated and/or soft keys”
  • Link to patent US5737394 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,070,068: “Communication terminal device and method for controlling a connecting state of a call into a desired connection state upon a predetermined operation by a user”
  • Link to patent US6070068 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,389,301: “Portable radio information terminal apparatus, display screen operating method, recording medium, and microcomputer apparatus”
  • Link to patent US6389301 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,446,080: “Method for creating, modifying, and playing a custom playlist, saved as a virtual CD, to be played by a digital audio/visual actuator device”
  • Link to patent US6446080 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 7,349,012: “Imaging apparatus with higher and lower resolution converters and a compression unit to compress decreased resolution image data”
  • Link to patent US7349012 (PDF)

MMI claims that RIM is infringing on the above mentioned patents with these mobile phones:

the 8800 series including the 8800 model, the Tour 9630 model, the Curve 8300 series including the Curve 8320 model, the Curve 8500 series including the Curve 8530 model, the Curve 8900 model, the Pearl series including the Pearl 8130 model, the Pearl Flip series including the Pearl Flip 8230 model, the Bold 9000 model, the Storm 9530 model and the Storm II 9550 model

This is the list of patents that MMI is suing HTC over:

• United States Patent No. 5,915,239: “Voice-controlled telecommunication terminal”
  • Link to patent US5915239 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 5,977,887: “Data storage apparatus”
  • Link to patent US5977887 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,043,760: “Language-dependent letter input by means of number keys”
  • Link to patent US6043760 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,049,796: “Personal digital assistant with real time search capability”
  • Link to patent US6049796 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,253,075: “Method and apparatus for incoming call rejection”
  • Link to patent US6253075 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,427,078: “Device for personal communications, data collection and data processing, and a circuit card”
  • Link to patent US6427078 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 5,490,170: “Coding apparatus for digital signal”
  • Link to patent US5490170 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 5,841,979: “Enhanced delivery of audio data”
  • Link to patent US5841979 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,070,068: “Communication terminal device and method for controlling a connecting state of a call into a desired connection state upon a predetermined operation by a user”
  • Link to patent US6070068 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,871,048: “Mobil[e] communication apparatus and information providing system using the mobile communication apparatus”
  • Link to patent US6871048 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 7,349,012: “Imaging apparatus with higher and lower resolution converters and a compression unit to compress decreased resolution image data”
  • Link to patent US7349012 (PDF)

MMI claims that HTC is violating these aforementioned patents with these mobile phone:

Droid Eris, Imagio, Ozone, Pure, Tilt 2, Touch Pro 2, G-1, myTouch 3G, Dash 3G, XV6900, Fuze, Hero, Snap, Nexus One, Shadow Hotspot and Touch Cruise

[Update]
This is a list of patents that MMI claims Apple is infringing on:

• United States Patent No. 6,253,075: “Method and apparatus for incoming call rejection”
  • Link to patent US6253075 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,427,078: “Device for personal communications, data collection and data processing, and a circuit card”
  • Link to patent US6427078 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. Re. 39231: “Communication terminal equipment and call incoming control method”
  • Patent link not available
• United States Patent No. 5,737,394: “Portable telephone apparatus having a plurality of selectable functions activated by the use of dedicated and/or soft keys”
  • Link to patent US5737394 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,002,390: “Text input device and method”
  • Link to patent US6002390 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,070,068: “Communication terminal device and method for controlling a connecting state of a call into a desired connection state upon a predetermined operation by a user”
  • Link to patent US6070068 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,393,430: “Method and system for automatically recording music data files by using the hard drive of a personal computer as an intermediate storage medium”
  • Link to patent US6393430 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,441,828: “Image display apparatus”
  • Link to patent US6441828 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,446,080: “Method for creating, modifying, and playing a custom playlist, saved as a virtual CD, to be played by a digital audio/visual actuator device”
  • Link to patent US6446080 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,549,942: “Enhanced delivery of audio data for portable playback”
  • Link to patent US6549942 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 6,760,477: “Method and apparatus for entering data strings including Hangul (Korean) and ASCII characters”
  • Link to patent US6760477 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 7,313,647: “Storage and reproduction apparatus”
  • Link to patent US7313647 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 7,349,012: “”Imaging apparatus with higher and lower resolution converters and a
  compression unit to compress decreased resolution image data”
  • Link to patent US7349012 (PDF)
• United States Patent No. 5,915,239: “Voice-controlled telecommunication terminal”
  • Link to patent US5915239 (PDF)

MMI claims that Apple is violating their patent rights with the:

iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS

It’s unlikely that any of these lawsuits will ever see the light of a starkly-lit courtroom in Texas. The M.O. behind patent infringement cases like this is usually to get a settlement that puts cash in the plaintiff’s (MMI) pocket in exchange for the defendant (HTC, RIM) side-stepping any admission of guilt while continuing to go about its business.

Again, what’s interesting here is that the patents were originally issued to Nokia and Sony. How those patents fell into MMI’s hands and why they’d be transferred to a company that was just a week old at the time is anyone’s guess. So, anyone care to guess?

Here are some relevant links:
MobileMedia Ideas LLC v. Apple Inc
MobileMedia Ideas LLC v. HTC Corporation et al
MobileMedia Ideas LLC v. Research In Motion Limited et al
Horn’s background
MPEGLA info
MobileMedia Ideas