A British tech company sued Apple in New Jersey district court on Tuesday alleging the company illegally copied their camera technology and then steered business on the App store towards iOS devices, violating antitrust laws.
Reincubate accused Apple of copying their Camo technology, renaming it “Continuity Camera” and then embedding it into Apple’s iOS system, according to the complaint filed on Tuesday.
Camo was designed for interoperability between Mac and Android users, but Reincubate claims Apple used its control over the operating system and App store to “redirect user demand to Apple’s own platform-tied offering,” according to the lawsuit.
Camo is software developed to enhance the quality of phone and tablet cameras to create professional-quality images and video.
The software was designed to operate on many different programs, including Windows and Apple products, but also software like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Chrome and other programs, according to the complaint.
Camo’s interoperability was a threat to Apple’s “lock-in” approach to fencing in consumers exclusively to Apple products and software, the lawsuit claims.
“For many years, Apple has built a closed iPhone platform and ecosystem that has driven the company’s astronomical value, an approximately US$3.7 trillion (RM14.57 trillion) market cap as of the date of filing of this complaint,” attorneys for Reincubate wrote in the complaint.
The company claims it lost “competitive position and commercial upside” after Camo proved its value to customers before Apple copied its technology, prevented equal technical access and redirected demand for Reincubate’s software to Apple’s substitute.
“Reincubate’s Camo was the first high-quality, commercially successful product to enable reliable high fidelity use of a smartphone – whether iPhone or Android – as a webcam for Mac and Windows computers," attorneys for Reincubate wrote in the complaint.
Camo launched in 2020 and was named an Apple Design Awards Finalist in 2023 at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, according to the lawsuit.
Lawyers for Reincubate claim that Apple encouraged the company to increase investments into Camo, but eventually realised the software was a competitive threat and made efforts to copy the software, thereby infringing on Reincubate’s patents.
“We strongly disagree with the allegations and believe the lawsuit is baseless,” a spokesperson for Apple said in a statement. “Apple competes fairly while respecting the intellectual property rights of others, and these camera features were developed internally by Apple engineers.” – nj.com/Tribune News Service
