'Apple owes me $2bn'

A Detroit woman says Apple owes her $2bn because the iGiant allegedly ripped off her smartwatch idea. Daisy Washington-Gross has sued [PDF] the Silicon Valley giant in US district court of eastern Michigan, alleging Apple's Watch infringes her patent. She claims she paid $325 to apply for a patent describing a "detachable …

[Peter Simpson 1]

Daisy also sued Reebok in 2000

https://search.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/1129951

[martinusher]

Tedious

I haven't seen this particular patent but there appears to be a number of patents filed over the years for a wristwatch with computer in it -- the notion of such a devices goes back to the 1930s and the implementation is at least as old as digital watches. The earliest example I know of is a watch/calculator from the 1970s. I've still got a particularly useless device from the 1980s, a Casio I believe, that's part analog, part digital watch with an 'organizer' in it. (The analog watch bit is nice, though.) Then there's the "Ironman" series of Timex watches from 10 or more years ago; these were actually user programmable, assuming that you didn't mind writing in Z80 assembler and could figure out how to fit your application in virtually no RAM. (Programmable or not it still ran for a year or so on a battery, had that 'digital crown' thingy that Apple thinks it invented &tc.).

Still, it couldn't happen to a nicer company -- isn't that the one that 'owns' a rectangle with rounded corners'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't the watch used in the Dick Tracy comics be prior art?

[Mark 85]

I thought that was basically a phone in a watch. Maybe a really dumb smartphone though....

[Herby]

This proves only one thing...

That anybody can sue anybody else. We need the "loser pays" doctrine here in the USA. Especially in these types of sueballs.

One way of getting around the fact that a bigger company DOES have more resources, is to make the loser pay the cost of their own legal fees to the winner. If you DO rack up a big bill and lose, you will pay a bunch of money. Then again I am just dreaming.

[PaulAb]

It truly is......

The land of opportunity, there's gold in them thar Companies. Gold! .....Gold! I tells yer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid on many levels

1. Apple wasn't the first to market with a smart watch and never claimed to invent it

2. "Computer wrist watch" can't be patented (well, shouldn't be) since it is an idea, not an implementation

3. Plaintiff doesn't provide proof of any such patent like a patent number

4. Suing in Michigan instead of east Texas shows the stupidity of the plaintiff, if you have a real claim that's where you go for the friendly jury