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Apple Hires Expert in Patent Fights

Sun’s ex Chief Counsel for IP battles, Noreen Krall, is now Apple's Senior Director of IP Law and Litigation

Apr 8, 2010 12:39 GMT  ·  By
Noreen Krall used to direct Sun’s Intellectual Property Law function, and now works for Apple, where she has taken up the position of Senior Director, IP Law and Litigation
   Noreen Krall used to direct Sun’s Intellectual Property Law function, and now works for Apple, where she has taken up the position of Senior Director, IP Law and Litigation

Noreen Krall, Sun's former chief counsel, is now Senior Director of IP Law and Litigation at Apple Inc. In the past, she worked as Staff Attorney, IP Law at IBM and Associate Attorney, IP Law at Beaton and Folsom, LLP. Noreen Krall’s specialties are IP, Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Licensing, Litigation, Open Source, and Standard Setting Organizations.

Noreen described her work at Sun as, “Directs Sun’s Intellectual Property Law function, provides legal counsel over all facets of Sun’s intellectual property assets, and leads Sun’s engagement on intellectual property law policy issues. In particular, responsible for the management of Sun’s patent, copyright and trademark portfolios, protecting, licensing, purchasing and sale of intellectual property assets worldwide.

“Responsible for managing all commercial and intellectual property litigation for Sun.”

As Senior Director of IP Law and Litigation at Apple Inc., Noreen will manage Apple's portfolio of patent-litigation matters. As of late, Apple has been embroiled in legal disputes over patent and IP infringement with the likes of Nokia and HTC, but also smaller names like the California-based MicroUnity Systems Engineering, which sued Apple and another 20 companies over mobile processors in some 14 patent applications.

On February 3rd, 2010, Apple sued Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturer HTC for infringing on patents that related to the iPhone’s user interface, as well as its underlying architecture and hardware. Apple filed the lawsuit with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and the U.S. District Court in Delaware. HTC claimed it didn't copy Apple while Google immediately backed HTC, citing the Android operating system that HTC handsets ran on. The fight is still on. Apple’s recent hiring may prove beneficial here. After being sued by Apple, HTC vocally disagreed with said legal actions, by issuing an answer that it also made public in a report.

On December 11, 2009, responding to a lawsuit brought against it by Nokia, Apple filed a countersuit claiming that Nokia was actually the bad guy, by infringing on some 13 Apple patents. At the time, Apple’s General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Bruce Sewell, stated, “Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours.” Softpedia soon expressed deep frustration with the lack of details provided in the press release, although the report seems to have fallen on deaf ears.