Recently, Cygnus Systems, a small Indiana company has filed a patent-infringement case against Microsoft, Apple, and Google involving the use of a web browser technology that display an image preview of files before users opened them. The lawsuit filed in a federal court Arizona where Cygnus Systems President Gregory Swartz reside is hoping to get a court injuction against the three companies for using their patented technology.
The products which allegedly utilize Cygnus patented technology for previwing images of documents on the computer are Windows Vista, IE 8 and Google Chrome. It also includes Apple’s use of this technology in its Finder and Cover Flow Mac OS X interface.
A partner of Cygnus Systems Legal Representative, Matt McAndrews also said that the lawsuit against the three giant companies are just a starting point for their other investigation on similar companies infringing on their copyrighted products and services.
“We’ve identified many other potentially infringing products that we’re investigating,” McAndrews said.
And Cygnus demands? Nothing faboluous reallly, but just a “reasonable royalty” coming from the three giant companies for using their patented technology.
Cygnus has filed for a patent recognition of the said image previewing technology in 2001 and was granted patent rights for the technology by the the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in March 2008.
The companies in question has not yet issued any official statement regarding the case.
