iPhone, iPod touch Named in Suit Alleging 14 Patent Violations

Apple is one of the 22 companies sued by a company that has alleged the infringement of 14 separate patents over mobile processors. Specifically named in the suit are the iPhone 3GS, and the iPod touch (with 32GB and 64GB capacities). Other devices named are the Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, Google Nexus One, and Nokia N900, according to AppleInsider.

The report in question reveals that all 22 companies are defendants in the suit filed by California-based MicroUnity Systems Engineering with Apple's exclusive mobile provider in the U.S., AT&T, also being targeted. The reason: it sells the iPhone 3GS and "services utilizing and software utilized by such products," the source informs. Other companies targeted by MicroUnity Systems Engineering include Acer, Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Qualcomm, Samsung, Spring and Texas Instruments.

Filed last week in a U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, the suit mentions the following 14 patent applications allegedly being infringed on by the 22 companies, including Apple:

- U.S. Patent No. 5,737,547, "System for Placing Entries of an Outstanding Processor Request into a Free Pool After the Request Is Accepted by a Corresponding Peripheral Device."

- U.S. Patent No. 5,742,840, "General Purpose, Multiple Precision Parallel Operation, Programmable Media Processor."
- U.S. Patent No. 5,794,061, "General Purpose, Multiple Precision Parallel Operation, Programmable Media Processor."
- U.S. Patent No. 6,006,318 C1, "General Purpose, Dynamic Partitioning, Programmable Media Processor."
- U.S. Patent No. 6,427,190, "Configurable Cache Allowing Cache-Type and Buffer-Type Access."
- U.S. Patent No. 6,725,356 C1, "System with Wide Operand Architecture, and Method."
- U.S. Patent No. 7,213,131, "Programmable Processor and Method for Partitioned Group Element Selection Operation."
- U.S. Patent No. 7,216,217 B2, "Programmable Processor with Group Floating-Point Operations."
- U.S. Patent No. 7,260,708 B2, "Programmable Processor and Method for Partitioned Group Shift."
- U.S. Patent No. 7,353,367 B2, "System and Software for Catenated Group Shift Instruction."
- U.S. Patent No. 7,509,366 B2, "Multiplier Array Processing System with Enhanced Utilization at Lower Precision."
- U.S. Patent No. 7,653,806 B2, "Method and Apparatus for Performing Improved Group Floating-Point Operations."
- U.S. Patent No. 7,660,972 B2, "Method and Software for Partitioned Floating-Point Multiply-Add Operation."
- U.S. Patent No. 7,660,973 B2, "System and Apparatus for Group Data Operations."

Founded in 1988, MicroUnity claims to have "aimed to extend microprocessors beyond their historical role as calculating and control devices, to make them the primary media-processing engines of televisions, set-top boxes, mobile computers, cellphones, and other digital communications devices," according to the company’s website.