Israeli tech company sues Apple over alleged patent violations

Shortly after concluding a legal battle with Samsung, tech giant Apple prepares to face being sued by a Tel Aviv company.

By: Jack Ben-David, World Israel News

Technology giant Apple is being sued by an Israeli company claiming that its technology has been illegally incorporated into its cameras in two new iPhone models.

Corephotonics, based in Tel aviv, is taking Apple to task, arguing that the new iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 Plus is kitted with a state-of-the art-camera designed by the company, which was founded in 2012.

The new lawsuit, filed on Monday, comes as Apple dusts itself off from a protracted legal feud with Samsung. In that dispute, Apple emerged victorious and was awarded $120 million by the Supreme Court.

According to the Israeli company, the new iPhone cameras comprise technology whose use is in violation of four of Corephotonics’ patents.

According to the complaints leveled against Apple, Corephotonics made contact with the mammoth tech company “as one of its first acts as a company” to discuss details of how the two could work together in a “strategic partnership.”

While correspondence was ongoing, the Israeli company claims, license agreements that would have legally permitted Apple to incorporate the dual lens technology under question into its latest models were never hammered out and fully agreed upon.

The lawsuit also details how Apple used its prominent status as leverage to intimidate Corephotonics founder Dr. David Mendlovic and dissuade him from pursuing a lawsuit, dismissing the patents on his technology and reminding him that fighting any transgressions by Apple would drain the Israeli company of time and millions of dollars.

“Apple’s lead negotiator expressed contempt for Corephotonics’ patents, telling Dr. Mendlovic and others that even if Apple infringed, it would take years and millions of dollars in litigation before Apple might have to pay something,” the claim alleges.

According to the website MacRumors, the patents in question, filed between 2013 and 2016, involve “dual-lens camera technologies appropriate for smartphones, including optical zoom and a mini telephoto lens assembly.”

Corephotonics, the site continues, “alleges that the two iPhone models copy its patented telephoto lens design, optical zoom method, and a method for intelligently fusing images from the wide-angle and telephoto lenses to improve image quality.”

CorephotonicsIsraeli technology