A from-nowhere e-book company that sued HP now litigates with Apple

A new lawsuit was filed against Apple for its iPhone’s allegedly infringing upon the patent of a Swiss company for an "Electronic device, preferably an electronic book." As reported by the Register the company suing Apple is Monec Holding Ltd of Berne, Switzerland, founded in 2000 and claiming itself to be "a leading innovator for mobile. Having a wide knowledge base ? mobile solutions the Register notes that it has never heard of this firm before.

The edition pointed to a notable fact that while the patent was granted in January 2002 and was "preferably" for an electronic book, the company’s e-book has such features as the ability to accept input from "speech control, acoustic signals, optical signals, brain currents, proximity switches, and switches which can be activated mechanically." Expressing its opinion on “brain currents” which implies ‘a control by means of brain waves, which are picked up by way of suitable electrodes or sensors from the user's brain’ the Reg ironically warns customers to be careful about what they think when holding a Monec e-book existence of which is more than doubtful.

Interestingly, the Monec patent also says that their device would have a display upon which "approximately one page of a book can be illustrated at normal size," which evokes an image of a Kindle. And while Amazon can become the next defendant in the next usual lawsuit Apple is actually the second company in a series of lawsuits initiated by Monec. Previously it sued HP in the same US District Court in Virginia for violating the same patent in regard to the HP Compaq 2710p Notebook PC for its ability to communicate wirelessly.

The Reg also pointed to some interesting facts with the lawsuit filings of Monec. “First, the Apple complaint is largely a word-for-word cut-and-paste of the HP lawsuit. Second, the HP suit was settled out of court on March 12 of this year and Monec filed its cut-and-paste suit against Apple this Monday.”