Apple Inc. filed a complaint against Traxcell Technologies, LLC in the Northern District of California – San Jose Division on Thursday for declaratory judgment of non-infringement related to a patent owned by Traxcell.
The defendant is a patent assertion entity “formed for the sole purpose of generating revenue by asserting patents against other companies’ products,” the complaint said. Apple claimed that Traxcell’s prior actions and statements have “created a substantial controversy of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment of non-infringement” as to whether Apple infringed upon the ‘147 patent.
On January 26th, 2021, Traxcell filed a complaint against Apple, alleging that they infringed upon two of their patents, but not the ‘147 patent. Even though no claim against the ‘147 patent was listed in the document, “Traxcell nonetheless included contentions and claim charts that mapped 19 claims from the ‘147 patent against Apple products,” which has still not been amended the filing reported.
The patent in question is titled “Mobile Wireless Device Providing Off-Line and On-Line Geographic Navigation Information.” Apple claimed that their products do not infringe the patent because claim 1 requires “at least one second radio frequency transceiver and an associated at least one second antenna of the wireless communications network” while the network components are run by third-party cellular companies and not Apple, and there is another similar claim within the patent.
Traxcell allegedly admitted that “cellular towers and base stations in the communications network include the radio-frequency transceivers and antennas required by claim 1.” Therefore, Apple asserted that they have not infringed upon this patent with any of their hardware or software products.
The plaintiff is seeking declaratory relief stating that Apple has not and does not infringe on the ‘147 patent, attorney’s fees and costs, and other relief.
Apple is represented by Shook, Hardy & Bacon, L.L.P.
