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

[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.

Live by the sword...

[AmiMoJo]

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

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.

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.