Palm fires back legal volley to Apple

Chauncey Dupree
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January 23, 2009
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Apple's de facto leader, Tim Cook, seemed to threaten legal action against Palm (in so many words) during the earnings conference call this week for their use of multi-touch interface in the Palm Pre. 

We like competition, as long as they don’t rip off our IP, and if they do, we’re going to go after anybody that does … We will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we’ll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal [to make sure that doesn't happen]. I don’t know that I can be more clear than that.

Palms stock dropped 6%.  Those are mighty big words to the bottom line.

What to do?  Palm fired back, in slightly less harsh terms this morning with...

Well, if Palm was shaken by Cook’s remarks, it’s not letting on. Asked if such aggro rhetoric about Apple’s intellectual property and the grim legal fate of those who might pilfer it worried the company, Palm spokesperson Lynn Fox said not in the least. “Palm has a long history of innovation that is reflected in our products and robust patent portfolio (31 pages of patents in Google Patent Search), and we have long been recognized for our fundamental patents in the mobile space,” she told Digital Daily. “If faced with legal action, we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves.”

You think Fred Anderson and Jon Rubinstein (ex Applers) are starting to piss off the current crew?

Comments (5)

Olternaut (not verified) | January 23, 2009 - 9:34am

Why? Because then the general public will learn more about the group of technologies called "multitouch" as opposed to Apple's own implementation of the technology which happens to be named "multi-touch".
Its very confusing and it needs to be settled out in the open.

Its my opinion that Palm is running their own particular brand of multitouch with code that does not belong to Apple.
If Apple does decide to sue them all that will really mean is that Apple has no new products (hardware or software) in their pipeline that is going to match WebOS and the Pre.

Wow. Should be an interesting tech year.

Luis Alejandro Masanti (not verified) | January 23, 2009 - 9:57am

This was a good move by Tim Cook: he named no company and the one cited jumped up all alone!
In other words, message delivered, shot recived.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 23, 2009 - 10:14am

Apple has 59 apple patent pages on the google patent finder.

daPrinz (not verified) | January 23, 2009 - 10:38am

“Palm has a long history of innovation that is reflected in our products and robust patent portfolio"

So, and took Apple to builds an iPhone for Palm to realize that they can actually use their innovations? And then they copy half of Apple's IP for their Pre and talk about innovations.
No Mr. Fox, you're still a follower with some good ideas inspired by the the company that stands for innovation.
After a song has been written, everybody can remix it!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 25, 2009 - 4:55pm

The question isn't if Palm has the tools to mount an effective legal defense, or even if Palm has a reasonable expectation of victory due to their extensive patent portfolio. The question is does Palm have the cash to mount an effective legal defense without being driven into bankruptcy.