Portable battery recharger maker HyperMac announced on Monday that it will stop selling its MagSafe charger cables for Apple laptops on November 2. The announcement comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed against the company by Apple over patent infringement claims.
“As part of our ongoing comprehensive licensing negotiations with Apple regarding a wide array of technologies and issues, we have decided to cease the sale of the MacBook charging cables and car charger on November 2, 2010,” HyperMac said in a statement.
RIP HyperMac MagSafe chargers
“While we will continue to sell the same batteries together with the rest of our product line after November 2nd, they will not be able to charge MacBooks without the cables.”
Apple filed the patent infringement lawsuit against Sanho, the maker of HyperMac portable battery chargers, in late September. According to the filing, the HyperMac product line infringes on six different patents related to Apple’s MagSafe charger connector, the iPod and iPhone dock connector, and cables.
The HyperMac product line includes several sizes of portable chargers for Apple’s MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, as well as the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPod.
Since Apple’s laptops all use a proprietary magnetic charger connector, Sanho has been collecting and using cables built by Apple in its own products. Apple alleges the company doesn’t have permission to use the cables and MagSafe connectors it culls from other sources.
Sanho president Daniel Chin told Engadget his company is currently negotiating with Apple over MagSafe licensing issues, “and ceasing the sale of the MagSafe cables was a perquisite for negotiations to go on.”
HyperMac said it has a limited supply of MagSafe-based products left, so the remaining inventory will likely sell out quickly.