Apple AirDrop Inspired By Our Wireless Sharing System, Claims eviGroup Founder

Apple's AirDrop easy file-sharing feature in Mac OS X Lion may bring the company some headaches, with a French tablet and software firm claiming it borrows from a wireless sharing system of its own. eviGroup founder Nicolas Ruiz claims that AirDrop's functionality shows considerable overlap with his own INPI-filed "Technique de Communication Réseau sans Configuration" ("technique of network communication without configuration").

The eviGroup method involves point-to-point WiFi connections with a simple proximity-based UI, that aims to bypass complex file sharing permissions and configurations. There's no word on when eviGroup plans to actually produce an app based on it, however.

Still, it looks like Ruiz is taking a sanguine attitude toward the whole affair, suggesting that "business is business" and pointing out that, because of the way European patents are formulated, it's the specific technique which is covered rather than the concept itself. The advantage of eviGroup's system, he suggests, is that it's platform-agnostic, and so will work with more than just Mac OS X Lion devices.