Dell, HTC and Apple Get Sued by Hybrid Audio LLC

It would appear that the holiday lawsuit spree is still very much in effect, as not just one or two, but three high-profile companies have been sued over patent infringement.

As odd as it may sound, it would seem that the closer the winter holidays get, the more legal actions sprout up around the world.

The action against Dell, Apple, HP and 15 others, as well as the lawsuit started against Sony and Square Enix, are just two of the more recent examples.

Now, yet another suit has started, no surprisingly over the infringement of a certain parent.

The patent in question is dubbed Patent RE40,281 entitled "Signal processing utilizing a tree-structured array" and is owned by Hybrid Audio LLC.

Said company decided it was time to sue Apple, Dell and HTC, which own quite a few products that allegedly violate the MP3 processing patent.

The list of Dell devices in question includes the Streak tablet and Aero smartphone, as well as the Inspiron, Studio, Alienware, Adamo and XPS personal computers.

On HTC's side, the allegedly infringing product is none other than the Evo 4G smartphone.

Finally, Apple's iPhone 4, iPod nano, MacBook Pro, iTunes and even the iPad are said to be among the products "that contain or use hardware and/or software for processing audio information in accordance with the MPEG-1 Layer III (MP3) standard."

The action was started with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and has as ultimate goal the injunction on the aforementioned product.

Of course, given the way licensing companies often operate, one can assume that Hybrid Audio LLC may eventually be satisfied with licensing deals.

Still, only time will tell just how this whole development will progress, though such lawsuits often end up taking months or years to sort out, so whatever conclusion is drawn is a way off still.