In my post covering the announcement of the Palm Pre, I noted that Apple seems to be positioning itself to attack the Palm Pre as an infringement on Apple's patents. And Tim Cook said more on this in the recent Apple earnings call. Nilay Patel, an attorney who writes for Engadget, and Mathew Gavronski, a patent attorney in the Chicago office of Michael Best & Friedrich, wrote a fascinating post on Engadget analyzing some of the patent arguments that Apple might make against Palm and some of the arguments that Palm might make against Apple.
They note, for example, that Apple might not have a multi-touch patent as everyone seems to assume, but Apple does have patents on the way that the iPhone screen scrolls and bounces -- features that the Palm Pre appears to copy. They also note that Palm seems to have patents on some things that the iPhone does, such as automatically adjusting brightness, integrating a list of contacts into a phone, and adding an additional caller to an active phone call.
The Engadget article is a great read and I encourage any iPhone-using attorney to check it out: Apple vs. Palm: the in-depth analysis. And if you want to read more, PC World also has a recent article which asks: Does Apple Own Touch Technology?
