BU floods court with patent lawsuits

Over the past few months, Boston University has taken a somewhat leisurely approach to filing lawsuits over its patent on making a component of LEDs, suing Apple here, lobbing a lawsuit at Amazon there.

Yesterday, though, BU opened the floodgates, filing nine separate lawsuits in US District Court against Acer, BlackBerry, Canon, Dell, Fujifilm and some companies few people have heard of.

BU is trying to cash in on the 1997 patent, which lays out a process for making thin films of the sort used in LEDs, before it runs out.

The suits ask for an immediate halt of the allegedly offending products, all the profits from them, damages, penalities and, of course, lawyers' fees.