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Apple Must Pay Patent Troll More Than $500 Million In iMessage Case (bloomberg.com)
A federal court in Texas today has ordered Apple to pay $502.6 million to a patent troll called VirnetX, the latest twist in a dispute now in its eighth year. "VirnetX claimed that Apple's FaceTime, VPN on Demand and iMessage features infringe four patents related to secure communications, claims that Apple denied," reports Bloomberg. From the report: The dispute has bounced between the district court, patent office and Federal Circuit since 2010. There have been multiple trials, most recently one involving earlier versions of the Apple devices. A jury in that case awarded $302 million that a judge later increased to $439.7 million. Kendall Larsen, CEO of VirnetX, said the damages, which were based on sales of more than 400 million Apple devices, were "fair." "The evidence was clear," Larsen said after the verdict was announced. "Tell the truth and you don't have to worry about anything." For VirnetX, the jury verdict in its favor could be a short-lived victory. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has said the patents are invalid, in cases that are currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The Federal Circuit, which handles all patent appeals, declined to put this trial on hold, saying it was so far along that a verdict would come before a final validity decision.
Why does the Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision not create immediate grounds for dismissal? Oh, right, East Texas.
We need more cases like these to incentivize big corps to get behind patent reform. They still feel like the current system works to their benefit, since the ability to shut down upstart competitors is more important to them than the occasional troll payout.
This is the kind of capitalism that we would get if the hardcore right-wingers and libertarians had their way. Pure fascism. A world ruled by absolute psychopaths, corporate monopolies, and vulture capitalist parasites.
But of course, these idiots will tell you that this is all the fault of the evil guberment and their evil patent law, or some other nonsense. Listening to them you would think that without governement, the world would be a paradise. Guess what asshole: Without governement, the world would be anarchy, it would be a darwinist hellhole. Oh, it would be in equilibrium, just like in nature. But nature is nothing but pain, suffering, cruelty and bloodshed. Escaping this hell on earth is the very reason humans created civilization. And civilization implies **gasp** governement !!!
No, the reason patent trolls exist is not because of a broken patent law, or governement, or all that crap. They exist because we haven't shot them in the head yet.
Good thing we're forcing our system at gunpoint down the throats of brown people the world over. Imagine if they actually didn't want this system. Shit, we can't be letting them try to come up with something better. What if they succeed?