Audio tech firm suing Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer for patent infringement

By Konrad Krawczyk July 28, 2014

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Lenovo, Toshiba, and Acer, which are three of the biggest PC makers in the world, are being taken to court by Andrea Electronics, a company that specializes in making audio-related tech.

Andrea Electronics is accusing Lenovo, Toshiba, and Acer of infringing on four patents in total, all of which deal with interference and noise canceling technology. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

In its lawsuit, Andrea Electronics claims that these PC makers offer laptops and desktops sold in the United States that employ these patent-protected technologies. Andrea is seeking money, a ruling that bars the three companies named in the suit from using the patented tech in their devices, and “among other things” as well. It’s worth noting that virtually every laptop, and some all-in-one desktops made these days have a microphone built into them.

We can’t help but wonder whether this lawsuit applies to a specific set of devices, or a broader range of them. Seeking clarification on this issue, we reached out to Andrea Electronics. We weren’t able to reach anyone, but should they choose to respond, we’ll update this story accordingly.

We also reached out to Lenovo, Toshiba, and Acer for comment, and we will update this story if and when they respond as well.

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Konrad Krawczyk

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Konrad covers desktops, laptops, tablets, sports tech and subjects in between for Digital Trends. Prior to joining DT, he…

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