Boston University sues Apple over 1997 patent

• University says it holds patent on a manufacturing method Apple used in its products
• Suit seeks cut of Apple profits that could total %2475 million
• Court not likely to order products taken off market

Boston University is asking a court to stop the sales of the iPhone 5, iPad, and MacBook Air, claiming that all those products infringe on a patent filed by one of its professors back in 1997.

The patent covers a method of generating blue lasers in a cheap, compact fashion using gallium nitride film semiconductors. The school wants a cut of all the profits Apple has made on all those devices, plus interest, which an expert tells CNET could amount to $75 million.

But don't worry Apple junkies, the court probably won't take those devices off the market, nor will BU really pressure it to do so; the request is pro forma, the Verge explains, included in almost all such lawsuits. And if BU seems like an unlikely litigant, you should know it has tried to enforce this same patent before, suing both Amazon and Samsung over it in just the past year.

(In other must-read tech news, the visionary inventor of the computer mouse has died.)

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