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Jury Tells Apple To Pay $532.9 Million In Patent Suit
An anonymous reader writes: Smartflash LLC has won a patent lawsuit against Apple over DRM and technology relating to the storage of downloaded songs, games, and videos on iTunes. Apple must now pay $532.9 million in damages. An Apple spokesperson did not hesitate to imply Smartflash is a patent troll: "Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no U.S. presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented. We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system." The trial happened in the same court that decided Apple owed VirnetX $368 million over FaceTime-related patents back in 2012.
Another Apple lawyer, Eric Albritton of the Albritton Law Firm in Longview, told the jury there was no reason for Apple to pay royalties on the price of a phone when the dispute is over a single feature.
“It doesn’t make a lick of sense that one person would buy an iPhone and not make calls,” he told the jury. “People do not buy cell phones for the sole purpose of using apps.”
In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.
I am an independent inventor (and Uni. scientist by day). I have tried to sell a basket of CMOS-related patents for 10 years. All I ever hear is "not invented here."
Now, the big Corps. are suddenly "discovering" what I already patented 10 years ago. I have no choice but to sue, sue, sue.
They bring this on themselves.
The big fish in tech would already like to see reform, the problem is other industries. Biotech has a much better lobby, is linked to a less visible but larger industry, and has come out in strong opposition to any changes that might make the system a bit saner. So the patent trolls can pick on tech all they like and not fear policies changing.
The real mark of the brokenness of our patent system is not patent trolls, but rather that most engineers are forbidden from looking at patents.
Sad but true. The patent system works so much against the original idea behind it, it needs to be taken behind the barn and shot.
On another note, I find it even more offensive that the best way to write the most patents the quickest is to sit on standardization committees. That's a well-known abuse that's completely ignored by ISO and other organizations. Because getting the big organizations onboard means a viable standard, and they won't come on-board unless they can kill off the competitors who weren't in the room.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
One of the best examples of abuses of patent reform is part of the history of refrigeration.
Refrigeration, and air conditioning as we know it was locked down for over 25 years because the ice industry was gigantic, purchased patents or had them granted (a metal tube with stuff flowing through it that chances phase, for example), which effectively blocked the refrigerator from becoming a household appliance until after World War 1.