Apple sued yet again; This time over iPhone, iPad, and MacBook cameras

Apple is being sued, yet again. Patents holding company KT Imaging (KTI) claims the Cupertino company has infringed upon its intellectual property regarding image sensor designs and will see it in court.

AppleInsider reports that KTI’s complaint to the U.S. District Court of the Western District in Texas alleges infringement of five patents. These patents were developed by Kingpack Technology, which is a Taiwanese supplier that specializes in CMOS sensors, and they were later assigned to KT Imaging.

Devices KTI claims have used the patent are the iPhone 6s, the 4th Gen iPad, and the MacBook Air. The 4th Gen iPad Mini and the iPhone 8 Plus are also said to break patents for “a plurality of first conducting pads arranged around the light-sensing area and electrically connected to the light-sensing elements.”

The plaintiff alleges there is an infringement of image sensor packaging technology, which is a technology that is now common in modern devices. The claims detail a “substrate having an upper surface, and a lower surface on which second electrodes are formed.” The described image sensor modules are mounted to the upper surface, connected with electrodes, and have a lens barrel with places for positioning lens elements together with the system’s photosensitive chip.

The patents at issue are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,196,322, 7,511,261, 7,598,580, 8,004,602 and 8,314,481. All of these were filed between 2004 and 2008, and detail image sensor structures and components manufacturing methods.

This isn’t the first time KT Imaging sues a tech company to protect its patents. In 2019 KTI filed against Kyocera, Panasonic, and Lightcomm Technology over infringements regarding similar patents. But the long list of companies sued by KTI does not end there. In 2020 the patent holder initiated actions against Samsung, LG, Acer, Asus, and Dynabook, and later sued Google, Microsoft, and Dell too.