Steve Jobs "nicked my battery design"

In a class action in Miami-Dade County, Angely Maria and Todd Narson claimed that the Cappuccino outfit is exposing punters to fraud and identity theft through store receipts. Meanwhile, a Michigan resident Thomas Harvey claims that Apple's portable power adapter treads on two connected patents granted in 2004 for a portable charger with the same fundamental technology.

Maria and Narson say Apple has "recklessly disregarded" consumers' rights to have credit or debit card information kept secret.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Apple was not allowed to print receipts that display a customer's credit or debit card's expiration date, as well more than the last five digits of the card's number.

Apple was allowed to ignore the law until December 2006 if it was lumbered with out-of-date technology, which is a bit hard to argue when you spend most of your marketing budget saying your are more advanced than anyone else. Even if Apple did opt for the "our computers are steam driven your honour" defence option, it was still supposed to be obeying the law since December 2006. But Maria and Narson say in the PDF here that Jobs' Mob has been ignoring it completely.

Harvey said that Apple's inclusion of a battery status LED at the end of a notebook recharger was his idea. He patented the idea in June 22, 2004 as the 6,753,671 patent entitled “recharger for use with a portable electronic device and which includes a proximally located light emitting device”. On July 13, 2004 he got the 6,762,584 patent with the catchy title "recharger for use with a portable electronic device and which includes a connector terminus for communicating directly with rechargeable batteries contained within the device".

He apparently contacted Apple with a request for the California firm to change its product or else to license the patent. Apple never got back to him. More here. µ