Apple Will Pay $25M To Patent Troll To Avoid Trial

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
This is why we cant have nice things. The worst part about this settlement is that this is what encourages patent trolls in the first place. These guys essentially bought a patent that they immediately turned into $25 million. :(

When Mirror Worlds ran out of appeals, it gave up and sold its patent—to another patent troll called Network-1 Security. In 2013, Network-1 created a similarly named LLC, this time called Mirror Worlds Technologies, and filed another lawsuit (PDF) in the Eastern District of Texas. The same patent, No. 6,006,227, was used to sue the same target, Apple. Apple said the issue was precluded by the result in an earlier case. After more than a year of additional litigation, a different judge said that the "new" Mirror Worlds could indeed sue again. They were suing over new versions of Mac OS X that didn't exist earlier.
 
Nobody pays $25 million to settle a patent suit unless they believe a jury will find that they infringed the patent and award at least that much in damages. Patent litigation is expensive, but not that expensive.

What, you think Apple doesn't use other people's inventions without paying for them? All large companies do, usually, in my experience, out of intentional ignorance that the patent exists. When I was an engineer we were specifically instructed not to check whether some new design we were working on might infringe a patent.
 
I feel like these patent troll companies more or less will go bankrupt trying to get what they want, so going to court is generally a loss even when you are right.
This fresh company prob would do more than 25 million in damages/court fees, so they just paid them to go away.

The thing with paying gangs protection money though, is that it only gets worse.

And that is what this is.
 
So wait... They can circumvent appeals limits by just selling the patent to a different company and relitigating all over again? That is absurd, and should have been thrown out. The appeals limit should be tied to the patent, not to the business.
 
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein​

Well, thanks for fucking that up Apple.
 
This conversation is very apropos.



Came here to say this, fuck everything about the east texas court. The whole town is full of empty offices rented by these bullshit companies that are just milking people for money and not showing a damn thing for it. Drug dealers are more productive for society than these twat waffles.
 
Heh that court is only a couple hours away from me. That is sad though.

It's a known patent troll court. I don't know how the DOJ hasn't investigated the judges there. It's known that if you're a troll and want to have home field advantage, you go to the East Texas courts.
 
Did you look at the Patents? It's basically an idea for sorting documents, images, etc, by chronological date.
 
So wait... They can circumvent appeals limits by just selling the patent to a different company and relitigating all over again? That is absurd, and should have been thrown out. The appeals limit should be tied to the patent, not to the business.
Wrong. They were allowed to file a new suit because Apple released a new product that the plaintiff alleged was infringing.
While we may talk in shorthand about companies infringing patents, the reality is that products infringe, not companies. You don't get a pass on infringing a patent on a new product just because your old product was found to not have done so.

Again, Apple is very unlikely to have paid $25 million to settle unless they thought the plaintiff had a good chance of winning and winning big.
Rail about "patent trolls" all you want, but this time, odds are it's Apple that's the bad actor.
 
Did you look at the Patents? It's basically an idea for sorting documents, images, etc, by chronological date.
What an application "basically is" is not what the patent claims and therefore not the legally-protected invention. The claims are everything. And reading claims is not something most people can do without training, skill in the art, an understanding of the specification, and sometimes a look at the file wrapper. And with all that, it can be difficult.

I say this as a patent attorney engaged in patent prosecution (i.e., working with the USPTO to get inventors patents on their inventions.)
I don't participate in patent litigation, so I have no dog in this fight.
 
Wrong. They were allowed to file a new suit because Apple released a new product that the plaintiff alleged was infringing.
While we may talk in shorthand about companies infringing patents, the reality is that products infringe, not companies. You don't get a pass on infringing a patent on a new product just because your old product was found to not have done so.

Again, Apple is very unlikely to have paid $25 million to settle unless they thought the plaintiff had a good chance of winning and winning big.
Rail about "patent trolls" all you want, but this time, odds are it's Apple that's the bad actor.

Just looking at it from the surface I'd have to agree.
 
25 million wow, I wonder how much the last shady people spent to acquire the company and lawyer fees
 
I would have thought the corporations would have put a stop to it. Obviously I'm not a politician.

I am wondering if we are actually remotely close on this discussion.

The Article concerns filing, or multiple filings in the
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS TYLER DIVISION. So this is a Federal District Court.

And you are saying;
Why do we allow the east Texas court to even exist?
and
I would have thought the corporations would have put a stop to it

I'm just not following you.
 
I am wondering if we are actually remotely close on this discussion.

The Article concerns filing, or multiple filings in the
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS TYLER DIVISION. So this is a Federal District Court.

And you are saying;

and


I'm just not following you.
The bat shit insane eastern texas court system. Since our political system is very corrupt, I would have assumed lobbyist would have had things changed there. Not sure what's so hard to follow.
 
I don't like that a company can buy intellectual property at a cut rate price (and it is obviously valued low) and then turn around and sue someone mega damages.

I mean to me, this is like me buying a wrecked car for next to nothing and then sueing the person that caused the wreck for loss of value to the car. If the car was worth something, then I should have paid more for it.
 
I don't like that a company can buy intellectual property at a cut rate price (and it is obviously valued low) and then turn around and sue someone mega damages.
Do you like that people can find items at yard sales, pick them up for a $1, and resell them for possibly hundreds of dollars on Ebay?

These people who buy patents from others are providing the inventors with income they might otherwise never get, and taking a risk doing so. An inventor who invents the Next Great Thing in her garage may not be able to afford to litigate against a big company like Apple, and even if she finds an attorney willing to do it for a percentage she may not be able to wait potentially years for the court system to award her what she is rightfully owed. So she sells the patent to a patent speculator for what she can get for it, and the speculator, who may have considerable expertise in monetizing patents and deep pockets, goes off to do what the inventor herself could not afford to do. Small inventor wins, speculator may win (or may lose), and Apple (in this case) loses.

Does this system get abused? Are some suits meritless? Do some speculators file strike suits? Yes, but that's no different than any other kind of civil litigation.
 
There might be a little more to the story than just the patents and lawsuit.

The lawsuit takes place in Eastern District of Texas, or EDTX, that court is known for almost disproportionally favouring patent owners (90%+ patents makes it through the trials. Compare that, for example, Silicon valley court houses in CA (only ~30% patents that gets through the trials).

Also, I must stress again, the rounded corner patents that so many people associate Apple's patents with is a DESIGN patent, NOT an UTILITY patent that most of us would associate "patents inventions" with.

That is not to say that utility patents are automatically better though, I have seen utility patents that claims things far more trivial than the Rounded corners.
 
I wish I could extort money from rich people like this.

what I would do with 25 mil...........
 
Do you like that people can find items at yard sales, pick them up for a $1, and resell them for possibly hundreds of dollars on Ebay?

I totally like that. It's a gamble on the investors end, and the person paying them pays what they think it's worth. But what does that have to do with a defendant being ordered by law to pay damages?
These people who buy patents from others are providing the inventors with income they might otherwise never get, and taking a risk doing so. An inventor who invents the Next Great Thing in her garage may not be able to afford to litigate against a big company like Apple, and even if she finds an attorney willing to do it for a percentage she may not be able to wait potentially years for the court system to award her what she is rightfully owed. So she sells the patent to a patent speculator for what she can get for it, and the speculator, who may have considerable expertise in monetizing patents and deep pockets, goes off to do what the inventor herself could not afford to do. Small inventor wins, speculator may win (or may lose), and Apple (in this case) loses.

You make it sound like the patent holder is doing something virtuous or on behalf of the original inventor. The problem I have, as I stated, is that the patent holder sues the defendant for DAMAGES, claiming that the IP that they own was damaged IN THE PAST before they took ownership. As a result of this damage, the patent holder was able to purchase the IP for pennies on the dollar. If that IP was in fact worth many many times more, why didn't the patent holder pay the original inventor many many times more? To me, buying something for pennies on the dollar is an admission that the IP is not worth much.

Yes it sucks that people put in their hard work and effort and don't reap the rewards. But that is the reality of life. No one is entitled to wealth and success. There is more to a product/idea then just the product/idea itself. It has to be a good product, there has to be demand for it, and it you have to be able to get it to your customer. Just because you meet 1 or 2 of those doesn't mean you are entitled to the success that others that figured out the whole thing.
 
You make it sound like the patent holder is doing something virtuous or on behalf of the original inventor.
They are. They put money int he inventor's pocket.
The problem I have, as I stated, is that the patent holder sues the defendant for DAMAGES, claiming that the IP that they own was damaged IN THE PAST before they took ownership.
Doesn't matter. There is a time limitation on patent damages of six years, 35 U.S.C. 286, but until that time elapses the infringer is liable to whoever owns the patent. Damages are like a debt someone owes you, and like a debt, damages can be sold to someone else for collection.

Patents grant a property right, including a right to collect for past infringement, and our legal system is very fond of alienability of property rights.
 
For 25Million you could hire a group of mercs to wipe out all known patent trolls.
 
Back
Top