e.Digital

I think this shows that AAPL is taking this suit very seriously. They are laying out their arguments against us, which Handal will need to study carefully and prepare responses to. Mainly these arguments relate to '774. They claim that the Mac Air is not truly a "handheld device" in the sense it is generally understood and that the flash isn't truly removable in the sense understood by the patent, also that our mentioning of other possibly infringing devices is much too broad and vague to count for anything except a fishing expedition. And that for all of these reasons the suit hardly deserves serious consideration. Yet clearly they are taking it very seriously and intend to fight vigorously.

They do allude to '737, saying that their devices do not search for the end of the lst recorded song and do not check memory upon insertion of the flash but on startup. Actually not many AAPL products that I'm familiar with use removable flash, so I think we'll have to work around that somehow. Also they mention the mic, which is shown in the patent, saying that their devices often don't have mics and therefore don't infringe

In short, I think that when we get to the March Markman there will be a lot of debate about the meaning of "handheld" and "removable" with us going for broad constructions and AAPL for narrow ones. Also EDIG must point out that, of course, the device has to be powered on for the memory test to work. The Flash has to be present and the device has to be turned on. Generally the flash will be inserted before the the device is powered on. AAPL is trying to create a difference where there is none.

In laying this stuff out, I'm just trying to summarize what I see as the case they are starting to build, the case we will need to refute. I'm not trying to judge how strong or weak it is, just to keep the discussion going. All JMHO, of course.