TracBeam, a Colorado based company, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple accusing Cupertino of using its location based services in iOS and OS X.
TracBeam has been awarded with several patents that are associated to wireless location technology for use in both consumer and business settings as well as for outdoor and indoor locations.
The company alleges that the Cupertino is infringing 4 of its patents covering the use of base station signals to estimate the location of mobile phones.
The patents include Apple’s location service for the iOS and Mac OS devices and the applications and services that make use of the location information collected and provided by the location service, including Maps, Siri, Safari, Camera, the iAds network and Apple’s “Find My Phone” service which permits users to trace their lost gadgets.
The plaintiff is seeking money in damages for patent infringement and an injunction preventing the sale of infringing devices. The patents included in the lawsuit are US patents 7,298,327, 7,525,484, 7,764,231, and 8,032,153.
TracBeam, despite the patent infringement allegations, is being called as a “patent troll,” a name given to firms that exist only to purchase patents and then sue infringing companies.
It is to be noted that the Colorado Company has also filed lawsuits against Google, AT&T, T-Mobile and a number of other companies. A study conducted in 2013 found that Apple was the most preferred target of the so-called patent trolls.
