Apple and SimpleAir have reached a settlement in their ongoing patent infringement lawsuit, according to a joint motion filed in court yesterday. The specifics of the agreement are not known, but it appears that the two companies have entered into a licensing agreement whereby Apple will license SimpleAir’s patents.
SimpleAir filed suit in 2009 against AWS Convergence Technologies, Apple, RIM, The Weather Channel, ABC, Disney, ESPN, and others for infringing on four patents related to the transmission of data. Several of the companies have reached similar settlement agreements, including AWS Convergence Technologies and RIM. A second suit was filed in September of 2011 against another slew of companies, including Microsoft, Motorola Mobility, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC, Google, and others.
There are four patents at issue – 6,021,433, 6,167,436, 6,735,614, and 7,035,914. SimpleAir alleges that Apple (along with, apparently, practically every other major technology company) infringes on these patents through the use of push notifications and other methods of data transmission and notification systems.
SimpleAir describes itself as “an intentor-owned technology licensing company with interests and intellectual property in the wireless content delivery, mobile application, and push notification market spaces.” With a description that emphasizes licensing and intellectual property and a website that consists only of that description and a press release about yesterday’s license agreement, SimpleAir appears to be a fine example of your basic patent troll.
