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Apple Ordered To Pay $506 Million In Damages For Processor Patent Infringement (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes from a report via Hot Hardware: Apple has been ordered to feed a recognized patent troll hundreds of millions of dollars for infringing on a patent that has to do with technology built into its A-series mobile processors. Initially Apple was on the hook for $234 million, owed to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) after it won a patent dispute against the Cupertino tech giant. However, a judge this week more than doubled the fine by tacking on an additional $272 million. U.S District Judge William Conley in Madison ruled that Apple owed additional damages plus interest because it continued to infringe on the patent all the way up until it expired in 2016. WARF is reportedly a non-practicing entity that exists only currently by defending its patents in litigation. The lawsuit filed in 2014 involves U.S. Patent No. 5,871,752, which describes the use of a predictor circuit that can help processors run more efficiently. WARF claimed the technology was used in Apple's A7, A8, and A8X processors that power the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and various iterations of the iPad. Apple is not commenting on the matter, though it's being reported that Apple plans to fight and appeal the ruling.
And this is one of the reasons I dumped my VLSI job.
"Innovate" something that's pretty obvious, and your company gets sued. Most of the innovation is actually convincing management to try something. It isn't cheap, but the risks are low.
Le sigh. Java developer it is. At least I can go into any Caribou Coffee and do my work from my laptop...................... (sigh)
...and they still didn't see it coming!
Having said that, is this WARF really a patent troll? My (foreigner's) understanding is that in the US, universities often expect some returns on their research in form of patent royalties.
Ezekiel 23:20
Way back in the 90s my little company was targeted by a patent troll. We were small potatoes but the co-defendents included Intel, IBM, and Digital. It seems some law firm was convinced that Ethernet infringed on some arbitration mechanism ARCnet used and they got the patent for it (from Datapoint I recall) so it was off to the horizon. They saw dollar signs.
Nothing ever came of it of course but it was still annoying to say the least to get served papers while we ere still trying to get one of our first products established.
I wish we could come up with a way to slap down patent trolls without making it harder for legitimate patent holders to defend their IP. I can't think of any.
Ordered to pay the University of Wisconsin. By a judge who: Bachelor's degree from University of Wisconsin - Check Juris Doctorate from University of Wisconsin - Check This judge should have recluse himself from the case.
If they are interested in making money on patents, then they should either make a product using those patents, or sell them to someone who can use them.
In any case, often times, even coming from universities, the patents applied for are minor tweaks on existing, well established technology. A branch predictor circuit? Those have been around for decades. The really advanced designs were on DEC Alpha chips, whose patents are now held, I believe, by HP. They did global prediction, which sounds an awful lot like what the WARF patent does, and the Alpha came out the same year the WARF patent was filed (it was issued two years later.)
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Patent trolls take questionable patents and go after companies without the resources to put up a good defense, hoping they'll decide it's cheaper to settle. They want to avoid litigation at all costs, because a loss threatens their business model.
A non-practicing entity _could_ be a patent troll, but not here. Apple has vast resources to defend itself, did so in court, and lost because the court determined that they were infringing a valid patent.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
patenting logic is fundamentally broken. the justice system needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch.
drain the swamp. MAGA.
you're all idiots.
America is the most fucked up place on the planet. Run by lawyers who make money by producing nothing, aiding no-one and suing people who do try to do something using a patent system that is a travesty.
What a shit country.
WARF is reportedly a non-practicing entity that exists only currently by defending its patents in litigation.
My first question would be does anyone else license this patent from them?
Actually it looks like they do. http://www.businessinsider.com... (the single page link does not seem to work)
I'm not sure troll applies to this company anymore than it does to Apple itself.
I did like one of the comments on the linked article from 2014 though;
"So apple get sued for patent infringement is patent trolling but apple suing for rectangles with rounded corners or unlocking by sliding your finger (on a touchscreen!) Is fine...."
I personally studied with Prof. Sohi in the nineties when he and his students initially filed the patent, which they did essentially to get beer money. At Wisconsin the alumni foundation will give the inventors 20% of all royalties and WARF takes the other 80% for the risk involved in filing and prosecuting anyone who is dumb enough to mess with them. The inventors get to split $2000 that is given to them upfront. The first people to try and steal their idea was actually Intel, who actually sent researchers over from their Israeli research lab to sit in on the talks by Sohi and his students after they initially published their ideas in an academic paper. At the time they told Intel they would gladly license it to them for cheap. Intel told them to fuck off, telling them they had no IP since they published an academic paper on the subject. Intel actually based their Centrino line off this patented idea. Today Intel doesn't market the Centrino brand because around 2010 they settled out of court, two days before the trial was to begin, for an undisclosed sum. They did so because WARF and Wisconsin could easily prove that they had stolen the idea. The one caveat Wisconsin requested was that Intel not market the Centrino brand anymore. The same people who robbed Sohi at Intel were hired by Apple and now the same thing essentially happened, fat money being sent to Sohi and his crew but his time out in the open so dipshits who know nothing of the history can talk shit about one of the top academics in chip design in the US. It's not trolling it's a multi billion dollar company who can normally shit on the litttle guys getting their comeuopance.
WARF is a part of the University of Wisconsin. The royalties go towards actual research. The research creates knowledge and patents. The patents result in more royalties. It's a positive cycle.
It's a really good idea, as it supports smart people who work on advanced ideas.
They are not a company, they are a foundation. When researchers at UW discover something financially viable, it's WARF's job to handle the legalities surrounding it. They file the patent, license it, protect it, and funnel any money to the inventors and back into the UW.
Troll definitely doesn't apply here. They are non-practicing because many researchers are not in to start their own company, but would like a safety net the next time their research grant doesn't get funded.
Captcha = Steward which is what WARF is, a steward being "a person who manages another's property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others" That is exactly how WARF is acting here.
I don't know of any case where a university lost a patent lawsuit. WARF has been part of the UW system since the 1920s; it is NOT a patent troll. You can read about some of the companies it created here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Alumni_Research_Foundation
Not practicing entities should not be entitled to anything.
It can't be easier!
Megaupload was accused of copying something and making it available to the public for money. They were shutdown immediately and the owners charged with crimes. Apple was accused of copying something and making it available to the public for money. They were .. sued in a civil suit.
Why was Megaupload treated differently?
Suppose those lawyers did not exist. And suppose the travesty that is the patent system also did not exist. Now suppose some small company came up with a CPU that's twice as fast than anything on the market. That company makes money for a few months when its competitors (say Apple, Intel etc) decide to reverse engineer the tech and add it into their CPUs without any compensation to the CPU tech inventors.
So what you want and are promoting is theft of work (IP). You want someone to become rich off someone else's work. We need lawyers and patents so that multi-million or multi-billion dollars of theft does not occur.
If it were a patent for a harvester, it might say
A harvester which gathers grain from a field consisting of
a) A gadget to cut the plants,
b) A gadget to separate the grain from the chaff.
Doesn't matter what the gadget is or how it works as long as it the architecture contains those 2 fundamental parts.
You can't eat without paying us tribute.
This is the reverse of 'promoting the useful arts'.
I like this idea of doubling the fine every time a party appeals and loses. It would bring to an end the perpetual appeal cycle that goes on with this stuff.
Eventually it will get to the point where Apple doesn't feel like dropping a billion dollars (or two billion.. or four billion) on going double or nothing, and will just pay the inventors what they're owed for what it stole.
Why don't you spend some time in Myanmar?
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