Just a day before announcing their 4th Quarter Fiscal Year 2006 financial results, Palm has disclosed that they have reached a settlement with Xerox regarding a patent infringement lawsuit.   It’s been a long battle, starting 9 years ago – just one year after Palm was founded.  The lawsuit centres on the handwriting-recognition technology called Graffiti.  Palm has previously done a workaround, changing the alphabet slightly with Graffiti 2 – and annoying millions of loyal users who had to learn it all over again. I was one of them!

I would say that this settlement is Palm’s way of closing the chapter on Graffiti and moving forward. Palm is now largely a smartphone company, and all the new Treos have QWERTY keyboards, so Graffiti is really a legacy for old-timers anyway.

Filed under: Mobile World

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