Legal Tips and Resources
Apple users tend to have their reasons to prefer Apple products, some find them more user-friendly or easier to use for creative projects, like graphic design. But one major issue some users have with Apple is how they have created systems that don’t interface very well with their competitor, the Android (ios text messages) phone system. One important example of this is the imessage application on IPhone. Should a Apple user decide to switch to an Android phone or to use both platforms in their life it can be very frustrating that imessage is designed to only work well sending messages from Apple devices to other Apple users.
Some Apple users have complained that incoming messages from the ioS Android platform can be lost in an iMessage blackhole, causing a serious communication break down. Imagine all the negative effects if important personal or business text messages you believed were sent never reached their destination!
Several tech blogs have created checklists for Apple users on a simple step-by-step process to uninstall iMessage before removing the SIM card to switch between a Apple to a new Android phone. Otherwise, tech experts warn you will likely have glitches in your text messages reaching where you send them.
Back in May of 2016, Apple was sued for $2.8 billion by VoilP-Pal(VPLM) over their portfolio of twelve key patents used in FaceTime and iMessage applications. At issue was how Apple phones when iMessage is not available in receivers’ phone will revert to the SMS platform. VPLM alleged this violated their patents, which relate to the classification of a user and how calls are then routed. VPLM had also sued AT & T and Verizon, and Twitter over the same patents. As of June, 2018 these cases had entered the discovery phase of trial. Apple lost their appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and upheld the validity of VPLM’s patents, as a patent attorney trusts knows.
Last April, 2018 Apple lost a $502.6 million patent case, forced to pay patent troll VirnetX Holding Corporation on claims they infringed on four patents that power imessage, FaceTime, and other secure communications. According to a report by Bloomberg Business., the eight year legal battle has ended with Apple’s legal team considering not paying the verdict ordered by a judge in the Eastern District of Texas (region known to be friendly to Patent Plaintiffs) while Apple won an appeal through the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that all of the patents in this verdict owned by plaintiff VirnetX’s were deemed to be invalid.