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Apple slapped in yet another patent battle

Your emoji are safe, though

Apple has to fork out US$23.6 million to a former pager company after a jury decision in the US District Court, Eastern Texas.

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies, which had filed a variety of patents back in the 1990s when it operated the SkyTel pager network, wanted US$237 million from Cupertino but didn't get it.

Its various claims against Apple included US 5,809,428 (handling undelivered messages), 5,754,946 (“Nationwide communication system”), 5,894,506 (store-and-forward messaging including what the patent calls “canned messages”), 5,590,403 (communication between the network and the mobile), 5,659,891 (multicarrier operation), and 5,915,210 (simulcast multicarrier transmissions).

The long-gone SkyNet is now the licensing arm of United Wireless. Bloomberg says Apple said the case would give the company control over emoji and calendar invites, but in the event, the jurors decided to clear Apple over the emoji claim and uphold the rest.

Although the patents are now either expired or near the end of their lives, they're still the subject of other cases. Mobile Tel is also suing Samsung, HTC and many others over its patents. ®

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