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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.
Not much more to it really.
Never happened. True story.
They claim to have products, do they really qualify as a patent troll? I thought patent trolls just bought up crappy patents and try to collect on people who actually created products that are "close enough" to fool that corrupt judge down in TX. Still lame no matter what.
Realize that the internet was out for a while before the firms were ready for prime time. The item in question is the 'Face Time' Server being out of service for a solid five months. Mine was, at least. The iPhone X has been in the pipes for a while, but wasn't designed by Apple at all. Understand that there is facial recognition on the Phone to log in. That takes 'Face Time.' Understand that Face Time is a login server for iMessages. It has been in the devel for a solid amount of time - Realize that the Protocol was in the internet far before even the first iPhones.
Well, the Eastern District of Texas at least.
Why does the Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision not create immediate grounds for dismissal? Oh, right, East Texas.
Dear Apple,
I offer to make everyone involved in the action against you "go away", at a significant discount vs $500M. I can assure you that it will all appear to be random happenstance.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
The Apple PR machine is really in full swing.
The patent was found clear and genuine in every single way.
The only bad thing is that Apple tried to get away with it.
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.
It's a strange quirk in the process that even though the patents have been declared invalid the ruling stands, at least until the validity of the patent has been adjudicated fully.
It's the legal system doing out-of-order speculative branch execution for the court/legal system - with promises.
on a global planetary clean up effort. Since the $ resulted in environmental pollution we cant afford.
[($)]
Fixed that title for ya.
apple is a well know patent thief; its not surprising they got caught again.
That's a good question. There are arguments both ways.
VirnetX WAS a research and development company that employed a lot of scientists and did good work. They z created* technology, they didn't mass produce and market it. Instead they did the research and licensed their patents to telecommunications companies and others.
Then somewhere along the line they realised they could *buy" parents cheaper than they could do the original research. They started licensing out patents that they bought, serving as a match-maker between researchers and companies that needed the technology. So far so good, in my opinion. We can see they got into the patent business, though.
Patent trolls frequently use "submarine patents", surprising companies *after* they have developed a product. That's not the case here. Apple engineers knew they were violating patents as they developed Apple's products. I don't know if Apple discussed license terms with VirnetX.
On the other hand, it seems these patents may not be valid after all. Patent trolls do frequently use questionable patents.
It's got less to do with patents that with people. It's a people problem, and people respond better to personal level interactions. Apple erred by approaching it as a legal / patent / courts problem. They should have gone with an experienced, direct, person-to-person negotiator -- what you might call the hands-on, touchy-feeley approach, but without the weird Larry Nassar implications of that phrase.
Apple is the world's most profitable abuser of the patent system. Any area they claim to research/develop on is in severe jeopardy for humanity.
Why even try to anything if all you do is spend the rest of you life in court? Fuck the system.
I kicked the bailiff in the nuts when I heard how the "judge" ruled.
It's obvious that the US Patent system is completely fucked. Why don't companies just start refusing to sell things in the US?
should read:
Reading the article, Apple isn't paying anything until the final appellate court's adjudication, which very likely will invalidate the patents in question.
IANAL
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
make it illegal to try patent cases in Texas.