(Real estate) developer sues Apple over Jesus Phone browser

Apple is facing yet another Jesus Phone patent infringement suit. This time, an opportunistic patent holder wants some cash for "the way the iPhone navigates the Internet."

After suits over the iPhone's touch screen, virtual keyboard, visual voicemail, and caller ID feature, Jobs and cult have now been hit with a browser-related patent attack from something called EMG Technology.

EMG "managing member" Elliot Gottfurcht is one of the inventors named in US patent 7,441,196, which provides exclusive rights to an "apparatus and method of manipulating a region on a wireless device screen for viewing, zooming, and scrolling internet content." The patent describes a means of converting an ordinary html page into xml format for browsing not only on wireless handhelds, but televisions and other web appliances.

Elliot Gottfurcht is also a Los Angeles real estate developer. He's responsible for Beverly Park, a gated community overlooking the Beverly Hills Hotel; the 800-home Beverly Glen Park; and the Carriage House, now the Westwood Village "W" Hotel.

Naturally, Gottfurcht and EMG have filed their suit in the Eastern District of Texas, famous for the kind way it treats patent trolls. ®