Court records: Philly attorney with insider info planned Apple ‘patent attack’

A Philly attorney who had access to confidential Apple information began planning a “patent attack” on Apple with his wife and her business partner six days after the iPhone launched, according to court records, Arts Technica reported this week.

The attorney, John McAleese, had access to the information because, at the time, he had been a lawyer at Center City’s Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, a law firm that calls Apple a client.

The trio launched the patent attack in April 2012, when their company, FlatWorld Interactives, sued Apple, “naming just about every gadget in Apple’s arsenal as a product that infringed its two related patents,” focused on swiping technology, Ars Technica reported. McAleese owns 35 percent of FlatWorld Interactives, according to Ars Technica, and his wife, Jennifer McAleese, was the company’s managing director, as Technically Philly previously reported.

The other owner of the company is Slavko Milekic, a UArts professor who developed the swiping technology. Watch Milekic talk at Ignite Philly in 2008 about technology and the sense of touch.

FlatWorld Interactives — its website appears to be no longer active — provided touchscreen apps and displays to the Philadelphia Zoo and the Philadelphia Flower Show, we reported in 2009, though Ars Technica reported that two out of the three Flower Show displays had broken down.

Where do things stand now? Apple is fighting to get FlatWorld’s attorneys off the patent suit, arguing that McAleese’s access to Apple’s confidential information taints FlatWorld’s attorneys’ case. McAleese, who no longer works at Morgan Lewis maintains that he did not touch the Apple data. The court will hear the case on July 11.

Get more details on the court records over at Ars Technica.

The big picture point that Ars Technica raises is: How common is this kind of thing? The publication lists a few known examples here.