A Los Angeles real estate developer filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. claiming the company’s iPhone violates a patent he was awarded last month.

Elliot Gottfurcht, a land developer and managing director of EMG Technology L.L.C., claims the iPhone’s Internet-navigation technology infringes on the new patent, which includes 76 claims that are “supported by specifications filed in 1999.” The lawsuit was filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas by the law firm Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro.

Gottfurcht claims his patent covers touchscreen navigation as well as the reformatting of content from HTML to XML for mobile consumption.

“Web sites are just beginning to develop their mobile sister sites for fast and easy navigation,” said Stanley Gibson, a partner at JMBM. “For example, to access NBC on a computer the URL is NBC.com. For the mobile site on the phone, the URL would be m.NBC.com. The ‘196’ patent covers the simplified interface of reformatted mobile content to provide optimum viewing and navigation with single touches on a small screen.”

Gibson was a lead trial attorney in a patent-infringement case against Medtronic Inc. that resulted in a $1.35 billion settlement in 2005. Apple representatives were not immediately available for comment.

  Email Article   |   Print Article   |   Permalink  |