The latest entrant in the "lawsuit of the week" category, according to AppleInsider, is Mirror Worlds, who is suing Apple for "willful and deliberate" violation of its software patents (don't they all?). The company believes that Apple is guilty of violating several patents and is seeking not just damages, but triple wordscore damages.
Mirror Worlds's patents describe a way to have your files visually arranged in windows according to the timestamps as well as searching through them. Sound familiar? Apparently, it did to Mirror Worlds: they claim that Mac OS X and, by extension, all Macs are guilty of infringing upon the patents.
The lawsuit also ropes in the iPod and the iPhone for good measure, because even though they don't present your data à la Time Machine, they've still been using timestamp-based organization ever since their release—and that should be reason enough for anybody.
The suit was filed in a Texas court and charged Apple for being guilty of violating not just one but four of Mirror Worlds' patents, dating back to as early as 1999.
You'd think Mirror Worlds would've realized this sooner, what with the iPod line having been around for the past seven years [and hell, the MacOS has let you sort by date for, er, almost a quarter century -DM]—but no, it was only when Apple released Leopard with Time Machine that they realized they could sue. Apparently timeliness is not next to godliness.
[Hat tip to reader Shrenique.]
Primary category: Legal
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