UNITED STATES

Boston University sues for big bite of Apple

Boston University is taking on the richest consumer electronics company on the planet, claiming Apple ripped off a computer engineering professor’s patented electronic semiconductor and stuffed it into the world’s most popular devices, writes Jessica van Sack for the Boston Herald.

In a bombshell lawsuit filed last week in the US district Court of Massachusetts, the university alleges that a small electronic component patented by computer engineering Professor Theodore D Moustakas in 1997 is included in the iPhone 5, iPad and MacBook Air.

Boston University has filed a total of eight identical claims against smaller manufacturers and device-makers as well as two other high-profile companies, Samsung and Amazon, in the past year. Although patent trolling is frowned upon, if the university can show its professor intended to make a business out of his invention, it may have a case.
Full report on the Boston Herald site