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Apple's Director of Patent Licensing & Strategy Departs for French Firm

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Boris Teksler, Apple's former director of Patent Licensing & Strategy, has left the company for a high-level position with French technology firm Technicolor.

Teksler has been head of Apple's patent licensing department through nearly constant licensing negotiations and patent lawsuits with numerous technology companies, including a broad licensing deal with Microsoft that included an 'anti cloning' agreement. He was with Apple for four years, after spending 16 years at HP.
Technicolor, a worldwide technology leader in the media and entertainment sector, announces that it has appointed Boris Teksler as President of its Technology Group which includes Intellectual Property & Licensing and the company's world class Research & Innovation activities. He joins Technicolor's Executive Committee and his appointment reinforces Technicolor's commitment to create and deliver exciting new experiences for consumers in theaters, homes, and on-the-go, and pursue the exploitation of its IP assets.
Click to expand...
The departure was first noticed by AppleInsider.

Article Link: Apple's Director of Patent Licensing & Strategy Departs for French Firm
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/06/19/apples-director-of-patent-licensing-strategy-departs-for-french-firm/
S

samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
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Probably bored. Same lawsuit different day ;)

I'm surprised no one has accused Microsoft or Samsung or some other "rival" of a conspiracy to lure him away from Apple though. The thread is young though :)
 
F

Frign

macrumors regular
Aug 19, 2011
116
408
Conspiracy

Everything suggests that there must be a conspiracy by Samsung, Microsoft or some other "rival" to lure him away from Apple.
 
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M

msimpson

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2007
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Torts

And in other news, Technicolor announced it is suing Apple for patent infringement....
 
Solomani

Solomani

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Sep 25, 2012
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Hopefully the guy that Apple hires as his replacement will.... set Apple in a DIFFERENT direction with regards to the patent wars? Maybe the beginning of a more conciliatory strategy to finally start putting an end to the Patent Wars?
 
Glideslope

Glideslope

macrumors 604
Dec 7, 2007
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samcraig said:
Probably bored. Same lawsuit different day ;)

I'm surprised no one has accused Microsoft or Samsung or some other "rival" of a conspiracy to lure him away from Apple though. The thread is young though :)
Click to expand...

I'm going to agree. While we still see all the established, unresolved suits, just how many new suits in the past 2 years. New Companies, new patents, new technology? He saw his workload dwindling.

Besides, his name is Boris. :apple:
 
Swift

Swift

macrumors 68000
Feb 18, 2003
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So, notice

Technicolor started as a "high-tech"-- Color! -- started off as a venerable tech company that held the first patents for the three-color process for color. Gone with the Wind? Wizard of Oz? Technicolor. Kodak invented the single-layer process, Ektachrome, much more able to shoot in dimmer light, and Technicolor became the ultimate quality development lab. Now they're a French company, and evidently one with a patent lawsuit division. They patented their color process at Hollywood's Golden Age, but a film process from the '40s is now pretty much worthless except for archivists.
 
J

jonAppleSeed

macrumors regular
Mar 21, 2013
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0
macs4nw said:
Don't know about that. He may be the man with the intimate knowledge of all patent related matters, but he still gets his orders from above.
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From the story over on AI
"In that testimony, Teksler revealed he warned late Apple CEO Steve Jobs and then-COO Tim Cook in 2010 that Samsung's smartphones may infringe on the iPhone's patents. Teksler even created a presentation outlining the patents Samsung was believed to have infringed upon, including inventions related to "rubber-banding," e-mail threading, and gesture heuristics."

So it seems like he is the one that pushed Jobs in the direction of going thermonuclear on Android.
 
iGrip

iGrip

macrumors 68000
Jul 1, 2010
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He's a traitor. He was never any good anyways. If he had any taste, he never would have left Apple. Good riddance.
 
Solomani

Solomani

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Sep 25, 2012
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Slapfish, North Carolina
macs4nw said:
Don't know about that. He may be the man with the intimate knowledge of all patent related matters, but he still gets his orders from above.
Click to expand...

While it may be true he gets his orders from above.... the Above Execs will likely have listened to his counsel first BEFORE they made decisions in going into litigation wars. Most likely he has extensive legal experience as an attorney. So companies will almost always ask advice from their Patent Attorneys before deciding to go into a legal thermonuclear war.

In the end this Teksler fella played no small part on the Apple patent disputes. At least some of the blame will rightly point to him.
 
kdarling

kdarling

macrumors P6
Jun 9, 2007
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First university coding class = 47 years ago
jonAppleSeed said:
So it seems like he is the one that pushed Jobs in the direction of going thermonuclear on Android.
Click to expand...

Ironically, those attacks did more to raise public awareness of Samsung than anything Samsung had done up until then.

Heck, I bought a Samsung Tab 10.1 only because I got interested in it after all the publicity when Apple tried to get it banned in Australia. It's still one of my favorites, but I didn't even consider it before I found out that it worried Apple. Ditto for my Galaxy Nexus phone. I got curious because of the lawsuits. Thanks, Apple!

The dumb thing is that Jobs should've known this. He had experience being the one under attack. When he left Apple and formed NeXT, he took the top Apple guys with him. Apple immediately sued him for doing so.

All that happened was that it raised the Valley cred of NeXT, since the lawsuits were seen as evidence that Apple was worried about competition. History has repeated itself.
 
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