The suit alleges that Apple has violated a patent held by one of the school's computer engineering professors. 
 
 Apple is on the receiving end of a patent lawsuit from one of the country's top universities. 
 
 In a suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, Boston University claims that a part used in the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air was patented by computer engineering professor Theodore Moustakas in 1997, the Boston Herald has reported. 
 
 The patent known as "Highly insulating monocrystalline gallium nitride thin films" refers to a semiconductor component invented by the professor. 
 
 "Defendant's acts of infringement have caused and will continue to cause substantial and irreparable damage to the University," BU said in its complaint. 
 
 This isn't the university's first attempt to fight for this patent, the Herald said. Over the past year, BU has filed the same complaint against other companies, including Samsung and Amazon. 
 
 Is this a case of patent trolling, or does the university have a legitimate claim? Either way, Apple could end up on the losing side, at least according to one analyst. 
 
 "Courts can be irrational in these cases," analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates told the Herald. "You get these ridiculous judgments sometimes and they may think of Apple as a big, rich company that doesn't deserve all that money." 
 
 A winning ruling could award BU as much as $75 million, Kay added. 

 Boston University has sued Apple for allegedly infringing one of its patents to make the iPhone 5, iPad, and MacBook Air. In a suit filed yesterday, the university said that Apple was illegally using its '738 patent, which covers a method of making thin gallium nitride film semiconductors that can produce blue lasers cheaply and compactly. The complaint doesn't specify precisely how Apple is using the patented method, but gallium nitrate films often end up in LED displays. Boston University argues that "[Apple's] acts of infringement have caused and will continue to cause substantial and irreparable damage to the University." 
 
 In return for using its 1997 patent, the university wants Apple to tally the profits it's derived from the alleged infringement, then hand over commensurate damages and interest on those damages. The application also includes a much more extreme, but boilerplate, request: Boston University's complaint asks for an injunction to stop Apple from selling or distributing the products it names. That doesn't mean, though, that this is remotely likely to happen. For one thing, this request appears in pretty much every patent infringement "prayer for relief," regardless of what plaintiffs are really looking for. 
 
 Boston University wants damages drawn from Apple's record profits 
 
 For another, it's unlikely to be pursued or granted. Boston University doesn't claim to be using the patent, and it almost certainly can't say it would be gaining a competitive advantage by keeping it to itself. Banning Apple's products would also run directly counter to Boston University's self-interest. Academic patents generally end up getting shopped out to companies, and Boston University filed a joint lawsuit over the '738 patent in 2006 along with a company that licensed that patent. That suit ended in a settlement, and the defendant agreed to also pay a licensing fee. Apple could well fight this latest claim, and the patent itself is set to expire at the end of next year. While this is yet another patent lawsuit involving the Cupertino computer maker, though, we're not exactly looking at another Apple v. Samsung. 
 
 Matt Macari contributed to this report. 
 
 Update: The patent expires at the end of 2014, not later as a previous version said.
– 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.)