Motion, Dell Sued by Typhoon Touch Technologies

Typhoon Touch Technologies has entered a lawsuit again Motion Computing and Dell, Inc. for patent infringement.   Typhoon Touch Technologies is joined in the suit with their licensee Nova Mobility Systems, makers of a line of rugged Tablet PCs with touch screens. 

Typhoon’s (TYPT.OB) complaint alleges that Motion Computing and Dell have infringed and continue to infringe its U.S. Patent No. 5,379,057 ("the ‘057 patent") issued January 3, 1995 and entitled "Portable Computer with Touch Screen and Computer System Employing Same," and U.S. Patent No. 5,675,362 ("the ‘362 patent") issued October 7, 1997 and entitled "Portable Computer with Touch Screen and Computing System Employing Same,"

The Typhoon Touch Technologies patents are pretty broad, applying to a "self-contained, general-purpose, portable, keyboardless computer [with] an input/output device for displaying inquiries on a touch-sensitive screen". The keyboardless and touch elements are probably the key aspects since they’re suing Motion Computing, who also resold to Dell back in the day.

I am no lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but the patents from Typhoon Touch Technologies seem very broad. Unless all makers of touch screen, keyboardless computers have licensed the patents from Typhoon Touch Technologies, it seems like Typhoon ought to be suing a bunch more companies than just Motion and Dell, assuming they really want to protect their intellectual property. Of course, companies sue each other all the time and frequently nothing ever comes from it, but I’ll be following this to see how it develops.

Update from Motion Computing: 

Motion Computing has just been informed of this claim and is currently in the process of reviewing the details.  To the best of our knowledge, Motion has not infringed patents owned by other parties.