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.

Comments

Patent reform will never happen

[halivar]

Unless the big fish start feeling the pain of the current patent regime. If patent trolls get too greedy, they may undo themselves.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[Penguinisto]

centered on a group of Republican judges.

Yeah! Take the latest federal judge in good ol' Marshall TX, Judge James Rodney Gilstrap - he was nominated by that great champion and bastion of the Republican party... err, Barack Obama. He was confirmed by the Senate in 2011, when the joint was run by that other massive bastion of conservative GOP morality, err, Sen. Harry Reid. :/

Here's an idea - how about you do some, I dunno, research, before you spout partisan politics.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[TheReaperD]

Although, wouldn't it just save us some time if we just nuked East Texas from orbit?

Why should we limit it to East Texas?

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[jythie]

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.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[penguinoid]

If patent trolls get too greedy, they may undo themselves.

Seems to me that if someone were serious about promoting patent reform, they would become a patent troll to undeniably drive the point home. I used to be upset at patent trolls, but now that I've thought about it the problem has never been the people who choose to most obviously abuse the patent system, but rather that the patent system is designed so that such abuse is possible. The real damage is caused not by the patent trolls, but by productive corporations who's random assortment of obvious patents will be used to sue any competitors into oblivion, thus discouraging anyone from even trying.

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.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[tlhIngan]

Unless the big fish start feeling the pain of the current patent regime. If patent trolls get too greedy, they may undo themselves.

Not likely. Patent trolling has been going on for CENTURIES. It's NOT a new thing. in fact, abusing the patent system has been worse in the past than it is right now. Sure it seems like a lot, but remember, you're on a tech website and tech is where a lot of patent fights are right now in the past 30 years. But since the 19th century, there have been tons of patents and patent wars and patent trolls.

Way back when, it was sewing machines. There were so many patents filed related to sewing machines that it ended up in a stalemate as no one could actually make a sewing machine without violating someone's patent somewhere.

And yes, many patents overlapped then as well.

To counter this, a conglomerate went out and bought up many of the patents (eventually becoming Singer) so people could go to one place to buy licenses for a set of patents and make sewing machines. Probably one of the first patent pools around, and this was an era where FRAND didn't exist. So you ended up with a huge corporate entity that basically holds everything sewing machine related to which you paid license fees for.

Then there were vehicles... the internal combustion engine was highly patented and the current Otto cycle engines we use today was patented, avoided, etc. Then other aspects of the car were patented, avoided, sued over, etc.

Then there was the case of intermittent windshield wipers (invented about a half dozen times), but the modern version would be by Robert Kearns who did a fully solid-state version, and offered it to the Ford Motor Company who copied the ideas and made their own, resulting in a massive patent litigation that spanned 26 separate car manufacturers and lasted until the mid 90s through appeals and the Supreme Court.

Yes, you can imagine that in the 90s when intermittent wipers were basically almost standard, patent litigation was STILL going on about it.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[Bonzoli]

I think Apple could get its big boy pants on and fix the patent system. Problem is they used it against Samsung, they do not want if fixed. So its just the cost of doing business for them.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[macs4all]

I think Apple could get its big boy pants on and fix the patent system. Problem is they used it against Samsung, they do not want if fixed. So its just the cost of doing business for them.

Um, this is WAY different than Apple v. Samsung v. Apple v. Samsung v...

That was a classic Patent Infringement suit. Both parties have employees, make and sell products, have R&D Departments, regularly file Patents on innovations (no flaming!) that they at least PERCEIVE in good conscience that they created from their own efforts, and for the express purpose (most of the time, at least) of incorporating into a REAL Product.

VERY different from a Patent Troll scenario; and it's high time our Patent System was modified to somehow reconcile the difference, BUT without creating a set of laws that effectively excludes the little guy, who may have come up with an perfectly valid and "Patentable" idea; but does not YET have a way to monetize it (which I acknowledge is actually a pretty tall order, legalese-wise).

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[lgw]

Don't mess with Texas.

But I think even Texans will make an exception for ... unfortunate events ... should they occur in a limited portion of East Texas. That might clear the bar on the "he needed killin'" defense.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[St.Creed]

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.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[Cederic]

Sorry but abusive litigation based on facile patents is abusive litigation. Doesn't matter whether it's done to or by Apple, the patents are still complete bullshit and their use for extortion is abuse and needs to be derided.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[mlts]

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.

Re:Patent reform will never happen

[Rakarra]

you brainless twatwaffle

It's unfair that this was nominated down. I love insults that are totally nonsensical, yet brilliant.

Live by the sword...

[AmiMoJo]

... die by the sword. Apple loves abusing patents and is one of the companies behind Rockstar.

Re:Live by the sword...

[darkmeridian]

Apple files a bunch of crazy patents and design patents (such as for the curves of their phone) but at least they sell products. Trolls that simply buy up patents to sue people with are a much worse problem because they aren't contributing anything to society. They are basically rent-seekers who glom off the efforts of others.

Just the same, I agree with you 100% that Apple bought into the game, made the game expensive, and then now cannot complain about the game.

Re:Live by the sword...

[spire3661]

The vast majority of Apple's patent s are due to the tech environment ripening, not actual innovation. They are just as much a patent troll as they company they are accusing of being a troll. Just because Apple makes product doesnt make them less so. IN fact the whole 'IP holder must make the product' is shitty reasoning at best.

Re:Live by the sword...

[Penguinisto]

To be fair, two things:

1) Most of Apple's patents are on hardware, and design patents aren't uncommon at all among big corps that make and sell tangible stuff (see also the Auto industry).

2) Apple got this way because they were IP-raped pretty hard in their early years (with Microsoft being among the more notable thieves).

Re:Live by the sword...

[alvinrod]

The reason they and every other company file all of these crazy patents is because it's much, much harder to sue them if they can pull out their own patent in the trial. At that point the other company now has to prove that a patent granted by the patent office, which basically says that this patent is a unique and different implementation than any other existing patented implementations, is somehow invalid. Good luck with that.

There is no buying into the game or not. Either you play it with a good strategy or you get rolled over and learn to play smarter the next time if you don't want to lose. Agreeing or disagreeing with the rules won't change them, and since next to no politicians really care about patent reform or have any understanding of it at all, it would take a lot of money to lobby for a reasonable change, which assumes that anyone opposed won't spend just as much if not more to make your efforts useless.

let me check what time it is

[slashmydots]

Time to fire that judge.

Good to point out since VirnetX was mentioned

[sasparillascott]

VirnetX, whom Apple lost a patent case to previously, had direct ties to the intelligence community of the U.S. Government - they sued to prevent Apple from using point to point encrypted communication with no encryption keys going to Apple (for their Facetime and iChat products - if memory serves)...afterward Apple was forced to change to a client server client model (where the encryption keys were held on Apple's servers - reachable via NSL's - the goal).

VirnetX also sued Microsoft and Cisco on these same patents. Just the NSA arranging the board so they could run it going forward. Software shouldn't have patents IMHO...simply because of the documented abuse of the U.S. government's proxy in these matters. Supposedly the NSA has other proxy patent holding companies as well.

Re:Good to point out since VirnetX was mentioned

[tgeller]

{Citation needed}

Ooops...

[Theaetetus]

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.

Re:Ooops...

[Theaetetus]

In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.

Outside of kids, that's probably true.

Inside of kids, it's too dark to use one.

Re:Ooops...

[goombah99]

In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.

Outside of kids, that's probably true.

Inside of kids, it's too dark to use one.

Nah, the screen lights up just fine.

Karma

[bjdevil66]

Yes, this is a patent troll, but Apple's been on both ends of these cases.

Case in point: A few years back, Burst.com had them by the short hairs over video streaming patents - probably worth billions today - and Apple got off with only paying $10 million.

You win some, you lose some...

Companies ask for it

[Sir Holo]

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.

Re:Companies ask for it

[JaredOfEuropa]

Start reforming what can be patented. No software patents, and throw out the crap that is obviously not invention but intellectual property land-grabbing.

Re:Companies ask for it

[jythie]

I have found that when companies start 'discovering' things 10 years later, it is because the earlier 'paper only' work would not actually work at the time and probably should never have been granted in the first place. You have plenty of 'choice', but sitting and waiting for someone to actually do the work and make a success out of something then springing your patents on them and trying to cash in... yeah.. you are not likely to get much sympathy for your forced hand.

Re:Companies ask for it

[bill_mcgonigle]

You have plenty of 'choice', but sitting and waiting for someone to actually do the work and make a success out of something then springing your patents on them and trying to cash in... yeah.. you are not likely to get much sympathy for your forced hand.

In a world where ideas are a dime-a-dozen, execution ability is the real currency.

So obviously those with no execution ability should use the government to force people to pay them for ideas they could not figure out how to make money on themselves.

IP.

Re:Companies ask for it

[jedidiah]

Better yet, if people are re-inventing your work why do you even think you should be granted ownership of it? Chances are that you contributed nothing to the state of the art. You didn't publish anything that's actually useful. Patents are rubbish as documentation. So if that's all you've contributed to the world, then you didn't contribute anything really.

The fact that ANYONE could "re-invent" your stuff means the patent should be tossed.

Patents are evil that way. They allow patent holders to claim ownership of the work of others. It's legalized theft.

The patents

[Art3x]

The patents:

- 7,334,720
- 7,942,317
- 8,033,458
- 8,061,598
- 8,118,221
- 8,336,772.

Re:The patents

[gnupun]

Looks like 7334720 is just applying DRM "over the internet," using a portable computer. How can anyone be granted such wide patents?

time to let texas secede

[Anonymous Coward]

Every patent troll suit happens in texas, a place where the school boards oppose evolution in textbooks.

Re:Lmao

[macs4all]

Apple "invented".

Give me a break. Apple was worse than MS when it came to the internet, CyberDog? Comical.

Interesting language, since the name for CyberDog came from a Comic in The New Yorker.

And you have to remember when CyberDog was released, it was a pretty cool and ambitious project. In fact, if it hadn't been for Microsoft throwing their weight around in the OpenDoc Consortium (and the fact that CyberDog was burning cash at a time when Apple couldn't afford it), CyberDog (and OpenDoc) probably would have evolved into a Web Standard.