Company Claims Patent on Passwords, Threatens "eBay, iTunes, AOL and Others
The squeaky while might get the grease, but it looks a profitable wheel gets a lawsuit. A Hong Kong firm is threatening to sue Apple for 12% of all profits from iTunes and iPod sales. It's much bigger than that, though.
Hong Kong's Pat-right claims the patent it holds on Internet User Identify Verification, US Patent number 6,665,797 granted December 16, 2003 covers any online financial transaction that requires a password for protection.
Pat-rights directly claims that its Internet User Identity Verification, covers "infringing parties" such as "eBay, iTunes, AOL and other big names," and that "the license fees collectable may be hundreds of millions USD."
What exactly is patent 6,665,797? Pat-rights offers up this explanation in a press release directed at the First of Apple's 3 Prior art:
"our patent 6665797 is directed to restricting software to be used by its rightful user, by means of a psychological barrier. Specifically, the software to be protected is authorized to be used on a user computer only if the user can submit confidential info for accessing an account or the same is existing in the user computer."
Judging from Pat-rights constant references, it's this 'psychological barrier' that's the heart of the patent.
