Apple Faces Patent Infringement Lawsuit by Bell Northern Research for Basic Mobile Wireless Technology

Urian B., Tech Times 12 August 2021, 01:08 am

Apple gets yet another patent infringement lawsuit by the company Bell Northern Research which is a distant descendant of Bell Labs. The patent infringement lawsuit leverages multiple properties that are related to the basic mobile wireless technology that is being used by the iPhone maker.

BNR's complaints lodged with the US District Court for the Western District of Texas and brought claims all the way from a total of ten different patents to bear directly against Apple's iPad, iPhone, and other different wireless products. BNR even cited the alleged infringement US Patent Nos.

Here are the Patents Involved:

Apple MIMO Technology Patent

The supposed patents-in-suit detail different methods of saving power in different mobile devices, semiconductor packaging, MIMO beamforming, chip packages with heat spreaders, and even the general cellular communications technology. The path to BNR's patent infringement lawsuit is still long and winding. The MIMO technology was also another target of an Apple patent lawsuit according to XR Communications.

According to the story by Apple Insider, BNR is now far removed from Bell System's very own Bell Labs. It is reportedly an entity that developed significant advances when it came to telecommunications and even laid the groundwork for the interconnected world of today.

BNR Roots

BNR also traces its roots all the way back to the Bell Telephone Company of Canada which is reportedly an arm of the Bell System that is responsible for originally making telephones as well as other equipment that are based on Western Electric's designs. The whole manufacturing business was then spun out into Northern Electrics in 1895.

Subsequently, the business cut ties with Western Electric to start creating its very own set of inventions in certain research labs that are based in Canada. BNR was reportedly formed when Northern Electrics as well as Bell Canada later merged both research and development organizations.

History of Bell

When Bell reportedly broke up in 1982, there were a number of splinter companies that were left standing. Lucent as well as its subsidiary Agere Systems were included among the offshoots. Lucent was even absorbed by Nokia back in 2016 and Agere was even acquired by LSI back in 2007.

LSI was then later acquired by Avago, which in turn was then acquired by Broadcom and even adopted the trade name of Broadcom, Inc. This was amid the tumult and BNR was then folded into Nortel. Apple also faced a $2 million fine for not including a charger in its iPhone 12 series.

The suit notes that former employees of Bell Labs, Northern Electric, and even Nortel had all decided to re-energize BNR back in 2017. This practice even meant turning the organization into a particular patent holdings firm that had existed to leverage the whole intellectual property development at Lucent Technologies, LSI, Agere, Avago and Broadcom.

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Written by Urian B.