Apple sued over caller ID tech

CNET reports.

This time, the plaintiff is Cequint, a company that focuses on caller ID technology and is a unit of TNS, which itself provides data communications services to businesses.

“Cequint has been damaged by Apple's infringement” and “will be irreparably harmed” unless stopped by a judge, Cequint's lawyers said in the complaint, Bloomberg notes.

Apple, of Cupertino, California, has been battling companies such as Samsung Electronics and HTC over patents for mobile telephones and tablet computers.

One of the patents relates to "caller ID equipment, which displays [the] location of [a] caller". (filed in 2002) and the second involves a "decoding and processing system for advanced determination of display of geographic information to a called party" (filed in 2007), TechFlash reveals.

On its Web site, Cequint says it was a "pioneer in landline caller ID" and now develops mobile caller ID solutions. The company's technology allows users to get name identification of a caller, even if that person isn't saved to their contact list.