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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.
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.
Agreed, WARF is not a patent troll. They genuinely represent university inventors and feed through licensing revenues to said inventors (in fact, for federally funded patents, this practice is required by law).
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
As a former researcher at the University of Wisconsin, I can reassure you that WARF is not a patent troll. WARF is a frequent target of accusations of being a patent troll, but they are a legit arm of the university. They get a bit of a bad rep because they're much more aggressive in asserting their patent rights than other public universities. The patents are certainly real, and they're based on real research. WARF won't pursue bullshit patents just because they think they might generate a payout, they only pursue stuff that is legitimately applicable and interesting.
If anything, I'd say they're overly conservative in what they choose to patent. My grad research was patentable, but they opted not to just because THEY didn't understand the application. Wish I'd gone out and paid for it myself, it's the hot new thing in a certain growing tech sector.
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.
It represents a university. Universities don't make products, they conduct research. Some of that research has practical usage, some of it doesn't (that's part of the idea of a university: they can conduct basic research, not just product development). The technology that is potentially useful can be licensed to fund more basic research, which is the idea behind WARF. It's a non-profit that handles the licensing and feeds the money back into funding research. WARF may not make a product, but they certainly don't follow classical patent-troll patterns (not least of which is, you know, being a non-profit, which kinda undermines the entire motivation behind patent trolling).
A branch predictor circuit? Those have been around for decades.
Coincidentally, so has the patent: it was filed 1996. I don't know enough about the technology to say much, but it certainly doesn't sound like a troll patent.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
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.