IT SEEMS at the moment that all the major lawsuits are happening in the US of A (naturally), but we should feel free to mention the two cases:

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First up, the king. Apple was taken to the big guys by EMG Technology LLC in Texas based on allegations the iPhone has patent-protected technology for web browsing. The patent in question was filed in November 1999 and finalised last month by EMG founder and current real esate developer, Elliot Gottfurcht, who walked away with over AU$874million from Apple who are treating the matter like any other of their lawsuits by refusing to discuss it.

Why not take down HTC or Research in Motion? The respective G1 Google phone and Blackberry trademarks use Mr Gootfurcht’s apparent technology too, but it’s quite known that neither make such a splash in the market as the iPhone has of late. Regardless, wouldn’t you want to take down a company who is less likely to be experienced in being sued? I guess it doesn’t matter who they are as long as they can pay you back for the damage done.

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Now Facebook is just a cause of cackles for everyone, isn’t it? Except for Adam Guerbuez of Atlantis Blue Capital in Montreal; he just had to pay the network AU$1.38billion for misleading users and generally being a nuisance. Facebook claimed in August that Atlantis Blue Capital were going as far as to obtaining users’ passwords in order to spread messages about sexual products, enhancers and drugs. Conveniently in the same month which Facebook made its first $100million.

Guerbuez (who mysteriously forgot to attend court) is not likely to pay up soon according to Facebook director of security, Max Kelly.

Does Facebook expect to quickly collect $873 million and share the proceeds in some way with our users? Alas, no. It’s unlikely that Geurbez and Atlantis Blue Capital could ever honor the judgment rendered against them (though we will certainly collect everything we can). But we are confident that this award represents a powerful deterrent to anyone and everyone who would seek to abuse Facebook and its users.

Everyone who participates constructively in Facebook should feel confident that we are fighting hard to protect you against spam and other online nuisances. We will continue to invest in this area by improving our technical safeguards and devoting significant resources to finding, exposing and prosecuting the sources of spam attacks.

Seem to be a lot of blogging about morals and standing up for the little Facebook users, Max!

Atlantis Blue Capital is also banned from using the network or contacting users via other means. Quite a large share of the human race you’ve been blocked off from, Guerbuez. Nice work!

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I suppose no matter how larger-than-life you are in the tech world, you’ll never get away with ripping off the goods of others. Become a Commonwealth Bank executive if you’re into that sort of thing.