Apple is being sued for $10 billion for stealing the iPhone's design
Thomas Ross claims the company stole the design for the iPhone from a patent he filed 15 years prior.
An American by the name of Thomas S Ross filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc two days ago, claiming the company copied designs for his (Electronic reading Device) for their iPhone.Ross claims that he patented a design way back in 1992 for an electronic reading device, a design he says Apple stole to implement in their iPhone, which was first launched in 2007,nearly 15 years later. His case filing includes three hand-drawn designs from the original patent, stating that the ERD, “embodied a fusion of design and function in a way that never existed prior to 1992.""What Ross contemplated, was a device that could allow one to read stories, novels, news articles, as well as look at pictures, watch video presentations, or even movies, on a flat touch-screen that was back-lit. He further imagined that it could include communication functions, such as a phone and a modem, input/output capability, so as to allow the user to write notes, and be capable of storing reading and writing material utilizing internal and external storage media. He also imagined that the device would have batteries and even be equipped with solar panels"The thing is, while Ross applied for a patent in November 1992, it was eventually declared “abandoned” in April 1995 by the US Patent and Trademark Office, because he failed to pay the application fees. Ross claims that Apple later resorted to “dumpster diving” and used his designs for their groundbreaking smartphone. As such, he’s suing Apple for US $10 billion, in addition to another 1.5 percent of all future revenue from the iPhone, iPad, and iPod line.Sure, technology companies have been known to “borrow” ideas from one another all the time. This isn’t necessarily an impossible scenario, until you take a look at the designs themselves.