OLPC Group Facing $20 Million Patent Suit

The One Laptop Per Child program has been sued by a Nigerian company that claims the program's low-cost personal computer violates its patents.

Lagos Analysis Corp. (Lancor) is contending in Nigerian court that OLPC's XO laptop violates a patent it says it holds on "multilingual keyboards."

Lancor is suing OLPC for $20 million and has asked the court to prohibit OLPC from distributing the XO in Nigeria.

OLPC is denying the claim, according to a letter from the group's attorney to Lancor.

"I assume that you are not claiming that Lancor has a monopoly on the creation of multilingual keyboards," OLPC's attorney states in the letter, a copy of which was posted Tuesday on the legal Web site Groklaw.

According to Lancor's Web site, the company was founded in 1994 and is incorporated in Massachusetts. Lancor claims it has a distribution deal in place for its KONYIN multilingual keyboard with Internet retailer Amazon.com.

KONYIN is designed to "accommodate combined character-sets from multiple languages on a single keyboard layout," according to Lancor.

The OLPC project was launched in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT. The aim is to build industry support for the production of low-cost laptops for poor children on the wrong side of the so-called "digital divide."

The group's first offering, the XO, runs on the Linux operating system and an Advanced Micro Devices processor; it's is priced at less than $200.

The XO is designed for use in emerging markets, such as Africa, where access to conventional power sources may be limited. As a result, it can be powered by a hand crank, pedal, or pull cord, according to OLPC.