Apple helping Nest fight Honeywell?
Presumably Apple is aiming to help Nest resist Honeywell's dubious anti-competitive lawsuit.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/12/2942861/nest-answers-patent-lawsuit-honeywell-troll
Here's the full list of Honeywell's patents Nest thinks are invalid or irrelevant, and why:
#7,584,899, which covers a rotating ring around a central display. Nest says this was "implemented years earlier by engineers at Volkswagen," who filed for a European patent.
#6,975,958, which covers controlling a thermostat through the internet. Nest says this was already covered by now-expired patent #4,657,179, which Honeywell first filed for in 1984 a patent it did not disclose to the Patent Office.
#7,476,988, which covers "power-stealing" to charge the thermostat's battery from the control wires. Nest says Honeywell already patented the idea ten years prior in patent #5,736,795 and once again didn't tell the Patent Office.
#7,159,790, which covers a rotating selector with an offset rotation axis. You guessed it: Nest says Honeywell filed for exactly the same thing nearly 20 years prior, resulting in patent #4,405,080, a patent Honeywell didn't disclose to the Patent Office.
#7,634,504, which is Honeywell's wild patent for using natural language prompts to program a thermostat. Nest says this is a retread of patent #5,065,813, which was filed 15 years earlier and not shown to the PTO by Honeywell.
#7,142,948, which covers displaying the time it'll take to reach a certain temperature. Nest says that was already covered by patent #6,286,764 and #5,767,488 patents that were again not disclosed to the PTO.
#7,159,789, which covers a thermostat with a rotatable selector dial partially hidden behind a non-moving cover. At this point you should be ready for this: Nest claims this was already covered by patent #5,224,649, which Honeywell did not disclose to the PTO.