We know that Apple is ever ready to drag its prominent rival Samsung to court on any given day. In fact its law suits against Samsung have cost the South Korean company millions of dollars so far. However, now it seems that its Apple’s turn to have a taste of its own medicine, as the high-fidelity audio/sound reproduction company, THX has filed a law suit against the California-based tech giant on Friday, March 15th. In this lawsuit, THX which is owned by Lucasfilm, has claimed that Apple has infringed on the copyright of its speaker designs by incorporating similar sort of speakers in the latest iMacs, iPads and iPhones. According to THX, Apple has violated its patent no. 7433483 that the privately held company has filed to shield its ‘narrow profile sound systems’.
Here is the exact description of the patent:
“A narrow profile speaker unit comprises at least one speaker outputting sound towards an internal surface and through a duct with an output terminus, such as a slot, having a narrow dimension, effectively changing the cross-section of the speaker’s audio output wave. A pair of speakers may face one another, outputting sound towards a common output slot. Multiple pairs of speakers may be used to form an inline speaker unit for increased sound output. A slotted speaker unit may include multiple speakers facing the same direction, towards a groundplane or reflecting surface, and having parallel apertures for allowing sound radiation. The speaker units may be integral with or attached to electronic appliances such as desktop computers or flatscreen devices, or may be used in automobiles or other contexts.”
Tomlinson Holman of George Lucas’s company was the one who actually founded THX as a part of Lucasfilm in 1983. Later in 2001 THX started working as a separate entity. To the extent THX and Apple’s relationship is concerned, the two companies never had a problem with each in the past. Two months before the filing of this law suit the San Rafael company launched an app called ‘THX tune-up’ for iPad and iPhone that enables the users to adjust their “TV, projector and speakers” from these devices.
On the other hand, this is the second law suit that has been filed against Apple within just one week’s time. As previously a customer of Retina MacBook Pro decided to took the Cupertino-based company to the court of law over flaw in its LG displays.
Source: 9t05Mac
Photo: PATF
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