WiLan sues Apple, Dell, HTC and others

Canadian patent licensing company WiLan has set its sight on a handful of technology companies, filing a patent infringement suit against Apple, Hewlett-Packard, HTC, Dell, Novatel, Sierra Wireless and others.

The company once offered wireless LAN products but more recently has earned revenue primarily from patent licensing.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, has not yet appeared online. In a statement, WiLan said the companies infringe one of its patents related to CDMA (code division multiple access) and HSPA (high-speed packet access) and another related to Wi-Fi and LTE (long-term evolution).

Apple, HTC, Dell and HP did not reply to requests for comment.

WiLan has sued Apple before, as well as Cisco, Intel, NetGear, Atheros and others. Friday's suit is also aimed at Alcatel-Lucent and Kyocera.

The booming wireless market is rife with lawsuits, as many companies are using the courts in an attempt to gain an advantage. Apple is battling Motorola, Samsung and HTC; Oracle and Google are embroiled in a dispute; and Microsoft and Motorola have also traded suits.

In August, WiLan initiated an attempt to purchase Mosaid, a company that on Thursday announced it had gained control of 2,000 Nokia patents. WiLan has been trying to buy Mosaid for the past several years, but Mosaid's board does not support the acquisition.

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com

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