As I sit waiting for my latest patent to be approved: An action or device enabling movement from point A to point B, I note that Taiwanese chip maker Via is the latest to resort to the courts for alleged patent infringements.
Everyone appears to be suing everyone else at the moment as there are billions to be made in license fees if suits are successful, more than for actually concentrating on improving the product or bringing out a new one.
Taiwanese chip designer Via is suing Apple claiming the US firm has infringed patents it owns, the disputed ideas having been used in Apple TV, the iPod, iPad and iPhone and the software they run on.
The patents in question involve the ways chips in these products use, transfer and manipulate data.
An earlier patent dispute saw Apple suing Taiwanese phone maker HTC. The boss of Via is Wen-Chi Chen, who is, coincidentally, married to HTC’s chairwoman Cher Wang, who co-founded both businesses.
Apple and Samsung are currently engaged in a suit and counter-suit battle with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a few phones already subject to injunctions banning their sale in various countries, and it is rumoured that as soon as the Apple iPhone5 is launched in Korea in October we can expect an immediate lawsuit from Samsung.
It is all getting rather silly.