Apple is being sued by Operating Systems Solutions for patent infringement. OSS claims that Apple is selling computer systems “including but not limited to the MacBook Pro, that utilize the Mac OSX operating system that infringes,” on a claim in its patent.
The abstract of the patent itself says:
“A method for quickly booting a personal computer system using boot configuration information on memory and the attached devices that was created and saved in a hard disk at the preceding boot process. The method for a quick boot process includes the steps of performing a power-on self test POST) operation when a personal computer system is powered on or a reset button is pressed; performing a normal boot process after the POST operation; saving the contents of memory and the status of the attached devices to a hard disk; checking if a reboot is requested; restoring the saved boot configuration information from the hard disk, after POST is completed during the reboot process; checking whether or not an initial device configuration file and/or an automatic batch file were changed; and executing commands in the two files and saving a newly created boot configuration information to the hard disk for future boot. The personal computer system, may reboot quickly because of omission of execution of the initial device configuration filed and the automatic batch file.”
Interestingly enough, the patent was originally owned by LG. Hat tip to PatentlyApple, which says it can’t determine if LG has any stake in the case against Apple, noting that a new LG tablet uses Google’s Android.
Google of course has been very vocal about patent issues of late. Last week, the company posted to its official blog, calling out Microsoft, Apple and Oracle, which turned into a very public war of words, mainly between Google and Microsoft.
Entrepreneur Mark Cuban has since put out a post calling for the end of software patents.
In other Apple news, the company has reportedly launched a $999 iMac for educational institutions, while the rumored Netflix competitor from the company appears to be further away than originally speculated.