Patent reform anyone? Yet another iPhone lawsuit

Here we go again. File it under the "let's patent something that millions of users have been asking for" department the latest iPhone related lawsuit comes from little known Minerva of Los Angeles. The filed for the patent back in November and despite Apple's submission of prior art last week the patent office granted Minerva a patent for a device that has

mobile entertainment and communication device in a palm-held size housing (that) has a cellular or satellite telephone capable of wireless communication with the Internet and one or more replaceable memory card sockets for receiving a blank memory card for recording data directly from the Internet and, in particular, musical performances that then can be selectively reproduced by the device for the enjoyment of the user, including both audio and visual recordings and reproductions.

I don't know about the rest of you but I've been saying for years that I would like a device that combines my cell-phone with my i-pod and a hand held computer. Maybe I should file a patent? Then again I don't have something as damning as this drawing that is included in the patent:


I can see all 3 guys at Minerva now sitting around a decrepit table and one of them pipes up "Hey, I found this old drawing we did in 1997 ... hmmm, lets make 200 the memory card slot, 202 can be the headphones and BAM! we have ourselves an iphone-is-infringing-on-our-patent meal ticket. "

In typical "obvious patent" form

Minerva on Tuesday also filed two additional suits of similar nature. One targets Research In Motion and Cricket Communications, while the other names 29 defendants, including AT&T Mobility, LG, Palm, Motorola, Nokia, Alltel, Dobson Cellular, Helio, HP, MetroPCS Wireless, Sprint Spectrum, Nextel, T-Mobile USA, Tracfone Wireless, Cellco Partnership, Virgin Mobile, HTC, Kyocera Wireless, Pantech Wireless, Sanyo, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung.

sources: Macnn.com & AppleInsider.com