Nowadays, the development of technology is increasingly sophisticated, there are many results of human thoughts or inventions that are more innovative in making a product or process to solve problems. Many of these ideas have been owned by large companies such as Apple Inc. and Data Scape Limited. To maintain the stability and assets of a company, the company produces many new innovations which are certainly protected by law.
Some innovations owned by the Irish company, Data Scape Limited, have produced patents on data synchronization systems. However, recently Data Scape Limited just filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. related the infringement of their patent. Problems that occur between Data Scape Limited and Apple Inc are related to patent issues over the data synchronization system that will be used in iCloud and iTunes services.
The lawsuit filed by Data Scape Limited to the Texas Court was due to Data Scape Limited assessing Apple’s services violating patent claims on communication systems. Apple’s devices and services violate the patent’s claim on “a communication system including a first apparatus having a first hardware storage medium, and a second (storage) apparatus”. The complaint says, the two apparatuses being supported by processors and Wi-Fi or cellular links.
Data Scape Limited is the owner of the U.S Patent No 10,277,675 entitled “Communication System and Its Method & Communication Apparatus and Its Method”, which has been granted on April 30, 2019.
Data Scape Limited pursuing a jury trial and asking for legal expenses, damages with interest and a permanent injunction against further infringement. Furthermore, not only Apple sued but there were 14 other companies including Amazon, Dropbox, Fujitsu, Pandora, SAP, Spotify, and Western Digital.
In the legal context in Indonesia, if there is a party that carries out a patent owned by a Patent Holder without its approval or permission, it can be said as a violation of law as stated in Article 161-162 of Law No. 13 of 2016 concerning Patent.
To avoid the above situation, there is the Freedom to Operate (FTO) Search that is also known as Infringement Analysis or Clearence Search, which functions is to assess the risk of patent infringement associated with a particular product. This way can be used to avoid such above lawsuit which can be conducted before the applicant file the application.
Am Badar & Partners as the leading IP Company in Indonesia also has a Freedom to Operate (FTO) Search service and if there are things you would like to ask or further discuss with us, please do not hesitate to contact us via email at info@ambadar.co.id. Our professional team will be pleased to serve you well.
SOURCE
- Law Number 13 of 2016 concerning Patent
- https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/20/apples-icloud-and-itunes-targeted-in-patent-infringement-suit, accessed on June 10, 2019