Apple, Inc. (AAPL) has been reportedly accused of falsely advertising the storage capacity available in its iPhones, iPads and iPods. Reportedly, a lawsuit in the northern district of California has been filed accusing the company of not mentioning the storage capacity of its iOS8 devices during marketing and promotions.
Incidentally, this has been a common practice among most smartphone sellers; however, Apple seems to be the one having to pay the price. Reportedly, the company is also facing charges for not allowing users to insert memory cards to increase storage capacity — another common feature offered by its rivals.
Apple is entangled in various legal battles over its mobile and tablet products. However, the results have not been entirely in its favor. In 2014, Apple extended the olive branch by dropping all lawsuits against Google (GOOGL) and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
Recently, Rockstar Consortium Inc. — formed by Apple, BlackBerry (BBRY), Ericsson, Microsoft (MSFT), and Sony — announced its intention to sell patents to RPX Corp., a patent risk management company. Rockstar, one of the biggest patent trolls in the U.S., will sell 4,000 patents owned by its members for $900 million.
These were part of the 6,000 patents that it purchased for $4.5 billion from Nortel Network Corp. in 2011 following its bankruptcy. Notably, the remaining 2,000 patents — regarded as key patents mostly associated with chips, optical and wireless technology — have been distributed among consortium members.
With the end of 2014, we believe that the latest patent sale by Rockstar will end the long-pending dispute between the consortium members and Google regarding smartphone technology. This deal represents smartphone manufactures’ efforts to settle legal tussles, which disrupt technological development and the promotion of new products and services.
Apple currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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