Apple, like many multi-billion-dollar companies, faces a lot of lawsuits. A lot of them. But by far the biggest, nastiest, and more potentially damaging of them all is the Imatec ColorSync lawsuit. By now you know the drill: a small company called Imatec is suing Apple for patent infringement in its ColorSync color management technology, and they are asking for $1.1 billion in damages. What's more, they are alleging that Apple was fully aware of the patents and violated them willfully, which means that if Imatec wins, they could possibly be awarded treble damages-- and Apple would be out $3.3 billion. Now those are high stakes.

We don't know a whole lot about Apple's stance on the whole thing, except that they refused to settle out of court and they issued a single public statement to the effect that the suit is groundless, because products that used the color management techniques for which Imatec claims it holds patents were available for sale in the U.S. in 1985-- three years before Imatec was even founded. As for Imatec, they've been very public about the whole sordid mess, and their latest press release on the matter claims that Apple is unable to provide any evidence of those 1985 products, and so Imatec is increasingly confident that it will win the case.

Now, it's obvious where our loyalties are, and we're not going to try to pass ourselves off as an impartial observer in this case. But that being said, does it seem to anyone else that Imatec's press releases about this suit all sound like a pro wrestler's self-congratulatory round of insults to his opponent just before the match? It's little things, like Imatec's use of quotation marks around the word "products," and the way that in every single one of these press releases, they state that they are "more confident than ever" that they will win. And that their inevitable victory will "seriously affect Apple's business." Now, why keep mentioning that part? And why are they suing for $1.1 billion, when it's perfectly obvious that Apple could in no way have derived that much income from ColorSync? It seems clear to us that Imatec's using cheap scare tactics to try to squeeze Apple for an out-of-court cash settlement; the stakes are so high, that settling almost seems better than any risk of losing. Don't misunderstand us-- if Apple's done wrong, than they should make amends. It's just that the whole Imatec thing smacks of legal extortion. No sir-- we don't like it.