Late yesterday a pack of five patent trolls filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. These entities make nothing. They acquired six out of the 7 patents from Samsung, LG and Panasonic. The trolls state in their complaint that "The parties’ licensing negotiations have been unsuccessful for the simple reason that Apple refuses to pay FRAND royalties for the Plaintiffs’ valuable patent portfolios." All of Apple's smartphones since the iPhone 5 and the new Apple Watch 4 series support the LTE standard and therefore must pay FRAND royalties to these trolls.

The Seven Patents in this Case are as follows:

8,005,154 A Samsung patent titled: "Method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving shared control channel message in a wireless communication system using orthogonal frequency division multiple access."

9,001,774 A Samsung patent titled: "System and method for channel estimation in a delay diversity wireless communication system."  

8,019,332 An LG patent titled: "Method for transmitting and receiving control information through PDCCH."

8,102,833 An LG Patent titled "Method for transmitting uplink signals."

8,385,284 A Panasonic patent titled: "Control channel signaling using a common signaling field for transport format and redundancy version."

8,411,557 A Panasonic patent titled: "Mobile station apparatus and random access method."

8,989,290: An Unwired Planet: "Mode switching between SU-MIMO and MU-MIMO."

Lawsuit based on 8 Counts

COUNT I: PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF THE ’154 PATENT

COUNT II: PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF THE ’332 PATENT

COUNT III: PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF THE ’284 PATENT

COUNT IV: PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF THE ’557 PATENT

COUNT V: PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF THE ’774 PATENT

COUNT VI: PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF THE ’833 PATENT

COUNT VI: PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF THE ’833 PATENT

COUNT VII: PATENT INFRINGEMENT OF THE ’290 PATENT

COUNT VIII: DECLARATORY JUDGMENT THAT THE PLAINTIFFS HAVE NOT

VIOLATED FRAND OR COMPETITION LAW

Below is a copy of the formal complaint filed against Apple with the court in a Scribd document provided courtesy of Patently Apple.

Optis Wireless + sue Apple by Jack Purcher on Scribd

Most who follow Apple's legal cases know that patent trolls have made suing tech companies in Eastern Texas almost an industry. TechCrunch confirmed the rumor Friday that Apple plans to shut down stores in Eastern Texas in April. The employees from those stores will be offered jobs in other Texas locations.

Trolls will be forced to file patent infringement cases in other courts where it will be more difficult in theory for trolls to win their cases as easily as they are today in Eastern Texas.

Whether this particular case will be the last to be held in Eastern Texas or if Apple will try to get the venue changed once the stores are closed in April is unknown at this time.