Patent Holder Sues Apple Over Quick Look File Viewer —c:net

WhitServe Alleges that Mac OS X Infringes on a Patent it Holds for “Sequentially Opening and Displaying Files in a Directory.” 

Steve Musil at c:net  reports that WhitServe, which owns intellectual property but doesn’t make any real products, is suing Apple over allegations that versions of the Mac OS X operating system infringe on a file viewer patent it holds:

The complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, claims that Apple’s Quick Look violates Patent No. 7,921,139, a system for “sequentially opening and displaying files in a directory.”
Introduced in 2007 with Mac OS X Leopard, Apple’s Quick Look allows users a convenient way to preview the contents of a document before opening it fully in an application. By selecting a file in the Finder and pressing the spacebar, users can view a window that shows a view of the contents of the file.

WhitServe said it is actively licensing the patent, which was granted in 2011, and has suffered as a result of Apple’s inclusion of the technology in its operating system.

Read the whole piece here. 

Apple Recently Has Been Engaged in High-Profile Patent Litigation with A Number of Companies

 

see also:
Apple’s ‘bogus’ patents will ‘strangle’ Android: Google