Judge Tosses Jury's $533M Patent Verdict Against Apple, Orders New Trial

An anonymous reader writes: US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap has thrown out a $532.9 million damages award against Apple after a jury found that its iTunes software infringed three patents owned by a Texas company. Gilstrap ruled (pdf) that the damages verdict must be thrown out because of faulty jury instructions and has ordered a new trial to be held solely on the issue of damages.

Comments

It's a strange thing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a strange thing, the American court system. The only time the "little guy" wins is when he's a patent troll that everyone wants to lose.

Re:It's a strange thing

[halivar]

I have a hard time siding with anyone using software patents offensively. Fuck these guys and their patents. And if Apple asserts software patents in a non-defensive manner, fuck them, too.

Re:It's a strange thing

[amiga3D]

Live by the patent, die by the patent. Apple has been know to abuse patents also. The irony is so heavy.

Re:It's a strange thing

[DoofusOfDeath]

I have a hard time siding with anyone using software patents offensively. Fuck these guys and their patents. And if Apple asserts software patents in a non-defensive manner, fuck them, too.

You may want to go a little more up stream. How about, "Fuck the corrupt U.S. Congresses and Presidents. Fuck the psychopath lawyers and business people who want to infringe upon our freedom so they can make more money. Fuck the SCOTUS for not recognizing software as math. (And frown at Donald Knuth who also thinks software should be patentable, but is otherwise a swell guy.)"

Re:It's a strange thing

[bill_mcgonigle]

Or maybe everybody could just put down the guns and stop trying to engineer a utopia by force. Yeah, maybe somebody would make less profit under such a regime, but the current trade-offs aren't worthwhile.

Re:It's a strange thing

[arbiter1]

Problem is look at crApple's history they been doing it too against samsung a lot. SO can't really side with crApple when they guilty of doing the same thing, then refusing to pay on patents they know they stole.

Re:It's a strange thing

[the phantom]

2001 called!? Did you warn them about the airplanes?

So why won't he rule on the Newegg case?

[aaron4801]

Newegg Asks Appeals Court For Help After Waiting Nearly Two Years For East Texas Judge To Actually Rule In Patent Case

Re:So why won't he rule on the Newegg case?

[Areyoukiddingme]

That article deserves its Slashdot summary, independent of the Apple story.

The Federal Eastern District is wildly corrupt. From the Newegg filing:

Further evidencing the unreasonableness of the delay in Newegg’s case is the most recent Civil Justice Reform Act (“CJRA”) Report for Judge Gilstrap,
which indicates that as of September 30, 2014, Judge Gilstrap had only a single civil case pending for more than three years, and that he had no motions pending
for more than six months.

That's from Newegg's argumentation that the 20 month delay is ridiculous. What they tacked on in the footnotes is fascinating:

Curiously, although TQP’s case against Newegg (filed May 6, 2011) had been pending for more than three years, and although Newegg’s JMOL motion (filed February 17, 2014) had been pending more than six months at that time, neither the case nor the motion were listed in Judge Gilstrap’s September 2014 CJRA Report.

Gilstrap wants to punish Newegg for daring to go to trial at all over the patent lawsuit, and further for daring to be right when they proved they weren't infringing, and finally for making a mockery of the idiot east Texas jury that found infringement and awarded millions for it, completely in contradiction to the law, other case law, and the plain reading of the text of the patent. And he wants to get away with it by hiding it from the CJRA Report. And he's doing it.

In other words, a law was passed by Congress to evaluate the performance of judges, specifically to catch malpractice like this, and he got a fraudulent report created that hides his misbehavior.

Newegg has the discretion to call that "curious." The rest of us call it criminal. Impeach the bastard.

Verdict stands

[radarskiy]

As any that read past the inflammatory headline will know the judge did not throw out the verdict. The ruling of patent infringement still stands.

As such, the case is being sent back to the lower court solely to rehear the damages portion, i.e.not further argument about whether or not infringement occurred will be considered there.

Good catch!

[Ecuador]

Good catch! I guess the difference is that that one is not against Apple...

from the East Texas court of patent trolls ..

[nickweller]

How east Texas became the epicenter for 'patent troll' lawsuits

Company with no product wins $533M verdict vs. Apple, says it’s no “patent troll”

East Texas Federal Judge Sets Rules for Post-'Alice' World

It's not a fine, and Apple's revenue is immaterial

[raymorris]

What fine are you talking about? This isn't a case about a crime. If you bump my car in a parking lot and it costs $200 to fix, you owe me $200. It doesn't matter how my you make - if you dent my car, you get it fixed, simple as that. That's called "damages". Same here - the plaintiff claims that Apple's conduct caused financial damage to their business, so Apple needs to make it right by paying the amount of the damage. It called "making the plaintiff whole", restoring them to the same condition they would be in had the event not occurred.