Apple hit with two new class-action lawsuits

Apple, despite (or because of) all its successes and odds-beating triumphs, still can't shake the occasional class-action suit being thrown its way. This week is no different, as the company sees not one, but two separate claims laid on its doorstep. The first hails from Florida, where two righteous citizens have filed suit against Apple alleging the company has "recklessly disregarded" consumers' rights. According to the suit, a law which prevents credit card information from being displayed on receipts has been ignored by the company, and if Apple is found to be in the wrong, it could be responsible for compensation to any buyer affected by its practices (that means you). The second suit comes from a man in Michigan, who claims that the Cupertino computer-maker has violated patents he owns for the inclusion of status lights on rechargeable laptop batteries. If his claim proves successful, Apple could find themselves accounting for lost profits and paying triple the awarded amount for the patent infringement. Of course, Steve Jobs loses money like that in-between his sofa cushions... right?

[jason @ Aug 10th 2007 10:22AM]

ehhh....not to get all lawyerly, but a patent infringement suit can't be a class action suit. just saying.

[paloooz @ Aug 10th 2007 10:32AM]

Correct. The title of the summary is incorrect. Apple has been hit with two lawsuits, one of which is class action.

[David @ Aug 10th 2007 1:05PM]

I'm not a lawyer, but in my understanding triple damages are only for knowingly infringing on a patent. I think it is highly unlikely that Apple knowingly infringed on the patent, even if they did infringe on it.

[popeye @ Aug 10th 2007 10:32AM]

My receipt from Tuesday contains the last 4 digits, so if they are talking about the copy the Apple store keeps, then I can see their point.

Nonetheless, a class action suit is poor form for such matters because the lawyers will be fighting over the settlement like rabid dogs over a bag of scraps and all I'll get other than Apple's acquiescence is .39 cents.

Why don't they just file the suit with the local or federal agency (FTC?) that handles these matters?

[LC @ Aug 10th 2007 12:53PM]

I don't think the people suing about the Credit Card information are expecting any type of a payout for themselves. I think the purpose of the suit is to get them to abide by the law and not print the information on the receipt.

Perhaps they did pursue other courses that went nowhere and led to this case. Unfortunately, many companies don't blink, until cases such as this, force them to correct the problem.

[John Cobarruvias @ Aug 10th 2007 6:36PM]

Have you ever tried to get the FTC to do something for the consumer.

I have on many occasions. On one we were successful, but on every other one, we had absolutely no movement. It is very very very difficult to get them to do anything.

Very difficult.

They are lucky they got attorneys willing to do this.

[Dayton Pruet @ Aug 10th 2007 10:49AM]

Here is a listing of states that have passed the CC Law. I wonder what state this person lives in, or where they made their purchase.

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/privacy/CreditCardReceipts.htm

The Federal portion of the law requires the individual states to pass the laws to cover it.

[Dayton Pruet @ Aug 10th 2007 10:53AM]

Ok, reread the article and it is Florida, so I guess he is covered.

[rockintom @ Aug 10th 2007 10:49AM]

A patent on indicator lights on a charging laptop battery? Er, don't most laptops have this? God, I hate stupid IP suits like this...

[bob @ Aug 10th 2007 11:04AM]

on the actually battery itself there are status lights for how much power is left.... i have never had another computer with those on it so no.

[OctaneZ @ Aug 10th 2007 11:07AM]

DELL batteries from years ago had them, not sure if they still do.

[MikeTV @ Aug 10th 2007 11:23AM]

Why do people jump to this argument? Do you know when the patent was filed and you are listing these other laptops with battery indicators as prior art? or are you just assuming that nobody has ever paid to use his patented technology? Just because other companies have these lights does not mean that they are violating his patent or have not made an agreement to do so.

[Mr. Yetti @ Aug 10th 2007 2:18PM]

My Inspiron (~1.5 yrs old) has button-activated, on-battery status lights, and my 6mo-old XPS does, as well. I guess the folks at the Panasonic and Sony factories that manufactured my battery and/or Dell had ought to expect some papers soon. IF this guy's complaint holds water. (otherwise he's just up Job's butt to look for Apple's collective wallet)

[jimimac @ Aug 10th 2007 6:50PM]

Those were on the powerbook I bought in 1997. Sounds like the guy is a little behind the times.

[Brian Ehni @ Aug 10th 2007 1:59PM]

Seems to me that for any validity, this idiot would have had to sue Apple about 10 years ago. I know the "Wall Street" model G3 books had lights; can't remember if previous ones did.

[david @ Aug 10th 2007 6:26PM]

Dell batteries still have button activated lights. And to maintain the integrity of his patent (if its even valid) he has to have to actually plan on making it/licensing it (I believe). I hate vague/stupid lawsuits like this. I might as well file a patent for rubber skid resistors on the bottom on all computers. And I also doubt that Dell licensed it for their batteries since I think Sony makes Dell and Apple batteries.

[rockintom @ Aug 11th 2007 9:44AM]

The thing that really bugs me is, though, that you can even patent something so damned simple, and demand so much money for its use. These kind of things really are common sense.

[Vincent @ Aug 10th 2007 10:53AM]

Man, it is all about the money. If APPLE is actually 'Apple' who want to sue them.

[Tonbo @ Aug 10th 2007 10:58AM]

Heh, both are meaningless. The first is not the kind of case that would ever come to trial, although I have no doubt the lawyer will get some manner of secretive out-of-court payment of the kind that encourages further frivolous lawsuits when a simple complaint would have sufficed. The second doesn't stand a chance now that the Supreme Court has broadened the definition of "obviousness" in the Teleflex case in April. My five year old iBook laptop battery has status lights but long before that Duracel AA batteries came with status indicators for a brief while.

[Ben F @ Aug 10th 2007 1:39PM]

I don't think you can site teleflex for this without reading the patent. Furthermore, the Federal Circuit has had very few case construing the teleflex decision and the Supreme Court is unlikely to take another obviousness case considering there general reticence to take on patent cases generally and obviousness cases specifically.

[bodonar @ Aug 10th 2007 10:59AM]

Hey, I patented a light photon slightly smaller than normal, look, I drawed it on a piece of greasy doughnut-wrapping paper. Nobody will be able to use them, and If you do by having your eyes open I will sue you for $100.000.000,00 right?

[Stan Winstone @ Aug 10th 2007 11:13AM]

When will we get proper tort reform. Say you want to sue a company like Apple with a frivolous lawsuit. In order to even get Apple's lawyer in the room you first have to pay a mountain of legal fees and prove your case before an arbitration board. If you prove your case has actual merit then you get to go to court with Apple. And if you lose, you pay triple Apple's legal fees... These lawsuits will disappear because people will realize they have everything to lose and little to gain with their lawyer's 'winning of the lottery' promises.

[almostinfamous @ Aug 10th 2007 11:21AM]

or you could fix the patent system, which is pretty underfunded so people don't patent obvious things.

[raswirsky @ Aug 10th 2007 11:57AM]

Are you a communist? You mean nobody has the right to property? Why don't you just steal an iPod?

[david @ Aug 10th 2007 6:28PM]

go vote for bush again ras

[raswirsky @ Aug 10th 2007 11:47AM]

I'm shocked at the comments here.

1. The first case is easy to ascertain. Either Apple is compliant with the law, or isn't. And if Apple chooses not to comply, the only way we "punish" companies in this country is to make them pay. A class-action lawsuit is the right way to make Apple learn its lesson.

2. Patents, the rights of an inventor, and specified in the US Constitution. If you don't like property rights, why don't you move to China? Maybe Apple should, too. After all they'll be closer to the kids who actually manufacture their products. I don't know if Apple's violating his patents or not, but if they are, they owe him compensation. That's how it works. Don't like our Constitution? Move!

[shaun @ Aug 10th 2007 11:51AM]

Yeah, too often you see big companies get away with things purely because they have the financial might to quell any opposition

Having said that, apple are innocent until proven guilty...but will it get that far?

[matt @ Aug 10th 2007 12:53PM]

Hear hear! People in the tech community are too used to hearing the word "lawsuit" and crying "frivolous" like it's a game of Marco Polo. Sure, lots of lawsuits are frivolous, but the vast majority of them aren't. The first lawsuit isn't even necessarily praying for damages, but really only injunctive relief (i.e. to make Apple stop breaking the law in the future.) The second is just to protect patent rights. Nothing wrong with this.

[shaun @ Aug 10th 2007 11:49AM]

I am probably a bit of an apple fanboy, but if someone wants to give me some money just because they have my card details then I'm not complaining!

[Miles @ Aug 10th 2007 12:18PM]

I don't see how the first one is frivolous.

If there is a law saying you can't put a credit card number on a receipt, then Apple has to follow that.


The second one is questionable, but it's just more of a reason why we need to fix the damned patent system.
The chances that this guy had never even worked on it are high.

[brittman914 @ Aug 10th 2007 12:29PM]

I read the article, and the guy's patent refers to the Apple-only status indicator light to indicate charging of the notebook. a la:

Green = Charged
Amber = Charging

I believe he was around seven years late, as my Powerbook G4 (circa 2000) included this technology.

But patents are patents....if Apple violated it, they pay.

[Turtle @ Aug 10th 2007 12:52PM]

Even beyond that, I have no end of devices that used a status light like this. All of Sony's InfoLithium batteries have had charge-level and charging indicators on them for years. Or how about the little green dot that some car batteries have had on them for more than 20 years indicating they're charged? If the patent merely covers using this prior art on laptop batteries, well, what's a laptop anyway? And would a different patent cover putting such an indicator on UMPCs or PDAs (mine have had those for years, too)?

[Shane @ Aug 10th 2007 1:32PM]

Again, the article ONLY refers to the status indicator on the laptop charger's plug. I don't remember if the G3 powerbooks had this but I can't recall seeing it on any other notebook power adaptors prior to Apple's implementation.

It does not appear that the issue is with the charge level indicator on the battery itself as this has been done in a number of other devices (Sony's Infolithium battery is the first that comes to my mind as well as numerous other batteries).

[Ben F @ Aug 10th 2007 1:55PM]

Turtle: There are many ways to write a patent and it may refer to "a portable computing device" or it may refer to using a particular mechanism to cause the light to dim or change color. Without the claims of the patent it is impossible to infer what was claimed and how Apple (and perhaps only Apple) is infringing. It also could be completely frivolous.

[oddTodd @ Aug 10th 2007 1:29PM]

I don't see how Apple is "printing" anything when it creates a receipt from the online store. Although to be fair, there appears to be a second Florida law referring to "creating" a receipt which might be relevant in this case. But since the transaction may actually be occurring in Cupertino, maybe only California laws are relevant.

[Bee Hatch @ Aug 10th 2007 4:35PM]

Steve found out and released a statement saying he wanted 45 seconds of his life back.

[dbanfb @ Aug 11th 2007 2:22PM]

Just like I want the 7 seconds back that it took me to read your tired joke.

[Susi @ Aug 10th 2007 4:36PM]

I hate it when my CC informaion appears on receipts. Hate hate hate hate it! Luckily, around here, it's usually just small ma and pa restaurants that still do this and doesn't happen enough to make me truly annoyed. But if a company as large as Apple is still doing this, then I would happily applaud people for taking it to court.

(Most) Attorneys do their best to cover all options and situations before bringing their cases to court (you don't want to piss a judge off). I am positive that these clients and/or their representing attorneys contacted Apple first regarding the CC information on the receipts, and got nowhere, maybe hundreds of times over.

Apple may have thought it was not a real issue or that they didn't need to listen. Or the right people in the company didn't get the information/complaints.

[RoCKSTaH226 @ Aug 10th 2007 7:49PM]

I have worked at several retail outlets, and as far as I know the full CC number gets printed on copies meant for internal use, and the customer copy only gets printed with the last 4. If I had to venture a guess, when two slips got printed up (which doesn't always have to happen), the people who are filing the suit got the wrong copy back, and cried foul thinking that Apple prints CC info on everyone's receipts. I could be wrong, but that's what I've always seen from my retail experience.

And the blinking lights... While I understand that by law this guy could have a case, I equate it to the lawsuits of "my coffee was too hot"... I mean, maybe I should copyright a button that opens up a laptop and demand payment from anyone who uses it! I think it would be easier for us to understand if this guy had a real case or not if we knew a little background... did he really invent the idea of putting lights on batteries? Or did he just notice it wasn't patented yet and figured he'd make a quick buck? I have far less sympathy if it's the latter.

[Revrant2394 @ Aug 11th 2007 7:08AM]

Why did the guy have to be from MY state? Couldn't his mother of made a bum rush for Indiana?

[Bee Hatch @ Aug 14th 2007 4:31PM]

7 seconds! That was fast. Lets try that again.

[johnny_undead @ Aug 12th 2007 5:28PM]

What will this second suit guy do? Sue Sony right after? Case PSP has the same Green=Charged, Amber=Charging LED system.

[The ZeroCorpse @ Aug 12th 2007 6:58PM]

Battery status lights on a battery have been around since at least the first clamshell iBook.

This guy's sort of late to the party, isn't he?