A man from Florida has taken out a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that Steve Jobs stole the idea for the iPhone back in 1992. Thomas S Ross is suing Apple for a staggering $10 billion, saying that the company stole his idea after he filed a patent for an “electronic reading device” (ERD), a rectangular hand-held device that looks eerily similar to today’s iPhone, in 1992. Telegraph.co.uk reports: His lawsuit says he was “the first to file a device so designed and aggregated as to have created a novel combination of media and communication tools… whose identity was, since then, hijacked and exploited by Apple’s iPhones, iPods, iPads and others”. Included in the lawsuit filing are drawings of Ross’s original patent. Ross claims Apple’s own reproductions “are substantially the same as his technical drawings of the ERD, and that Apple’s three-dimensional derivative devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad), embody the non-functional aesthetic look and feel”. You can decide for yourself whether Ross’s drawings look anything like your iPhone. As well as the $10 billion-plus, Ross claims he is owed “a reasonable royalty” of 1.5pc of all of Apple’s future sales. Given that Apple made $235 billion in revenue last year, that would be [...]
