Can Elan Touch the Unstoppable Apple?

April 6, 2010 - PRLog -- Apple’s newest technology, the iPad, hit the market Saturday, March 3rd but if it was up to Elan Microelectronics Corporation the iPad along with Apple’s other popular products like the iPhone and iTouch would be permanently off the shelves.

On March 29, 2010 Elan filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission asking them to investigate whether Apple was violating Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Elan is seeking for a permanent exclusion order that would block Apple’s infringing products from coming into the U.S.

The complaint states that Apple is importing into the United States devices that infringe Elan’s patent 5,825,352, “Multiple fingers contact sensing method for emulating mouse buttons and mouse operations on a touch sensor pad”. The patent claims technology that is fundamental to multi-touch user interfaces that are found in many computers and portable electronic devices.

Apple’s new iPad is one of the products that Elan is trying to bar the sale of as well as Apple’s iPhone 3G and 3GS, the iPod Touch, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Magic Mouse wireless mice.

The complaint states that the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch products that were introduced in June 2007 “use touchscreens as essentially the only user interface option and make widespread use of the multitouch input gestures of the ‘352 patent.”

According to the complaint Elan was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in the Science Based Industrial Park in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Elan claims to be the leading designer of specialty microcontroller-based semiconductor products. Elan’s most popular product is its Smart-Pad touchpad product for portable computers.

Patent Calls tried to contact all parties involved for comment. None responded by press time.

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