They are patent trolls because they sued Apple. Sure they did the research, and yes the invented something, and yes they also patented something, but that doesn't give them the right to sue Apple who used their invention to make billions and billions of dollars.
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Apple Loses A7/A8 Patent Lawsuit, Could Owe University of Wisconsin Up to $862 Million
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They are patent trolls because they sued Apple. Sure they did the research, and yes the invented something, and yes they also patented something, but that doesn't give them the right to sue Apple who used their invention to make billions and billions of dollars.
I guess they need to make up for budget cuts one way or another. The good news for Apple is that the patent expires in 2018.
I wonder if UW tried to settle with Apple. Generally speaking, research universities want their work used, and not just sitting on a shelf somewhere.
Scott walker sucks good think he dropped out last thing we need is more union jobs gone. He even tried to take good jobs from near by states. Let Harley-Davidson outsource it's IT to Infosys that uses a high number of H1B guest workers.
It sounds to me like Apple decided that the patent was invalid, was unable to get the Patent Office to agree, and then went right ahead and willfully used the patent in their chips anyway. This is dishonest and unethical, and will cause extra fines for willful abuse. Any company who does this kind of thing deserves what they get. What were they thinking?
As a legal major, thank you for the reminder
But in all seriousness, if Apple's gotta pay this out, base model iPhones will be 16gb forever.
Intel and Qualcomm also used the technology but settled for undisclosed sums when UW threatened them with lawsuits. My guess is that Apple decided to roll the dice. We don't know yet what the damages will be, or if the appeals process will change that. In-state juries tend to give headline-grabbing awards, especially when there are deep out-of-state pockets involved. However, often appellate courts reduce the awards, even if they don't throw them out entirely.
What a moronic sentiment. They will make you pay more? I assume there's a guy standing behind you pointing a gun at your head telling you that you have to buy some Apple products?
Ridiculous!
An example of someone responding to a comment that he does not understand and have no idea of the issue here. Apple does owe Ireland nothing, because that is not the issue in fact it is exactly the opposite. Apple and many others set up so called head quarters in Ireland where the corporate Tax is low and then book all their income from the rest of Europe in Ireland. Companies are in fact suppose to book income and profit in the country in which it is earned. How would you like it if Apple booked all their US income in Panama and paid no taxes in the US.
Every other country in Europe is going after these large corporations, rightly so and they are going to win. Starbucks is another example of a company that is playing fast and loose with the law but they have a slightly different strategy. They have operated in the UK for some 20 years, it is their largest overseas operation and they have never made a profit. Why then do they continue to operate a loss making operation. The strategy they use is also to get all their profits in the location with the lowest corporate Tax and they do this by making all their stores buy product from central headquarters. For example they might buy a product at headquarters for a Dollar and charge their stores ten dollars. This ensures all of their stores in each country make losses but headquarters make a hugh profit and pay low corporate tax.
Anyone that thinks this is going to continue needs their head examined.
The building should be named "Apple Building.. where thin products get thinner!"Apple should offer to settle, give a whole bunch of money and get a building named after them on campus: The Apple Building. It can be a place where technology and liberal arts come together
yes. did you know that apple is also the only company using sweatshops in china to make their products?
I don't know everything about the case, but if Apple did use technically legal methods to pay as little taxes as possible, good for them. If those tax breaks are illegal, then they should pay the price. Either way, tax codes need to be changed.
lemme just say that i was in graduate school with these guys during this time, and 1) they are legit, 2) they are a bunch of nice guys, and 3) the university of wisconsin is very, very pro-inventor. the people named on this patent are going to see a large share of the money, unlike if they worked for intel or someone who would write them a check for $5000 and pocket the rest.
Dear WARF,
Due to the patent suit, we will be charging all your current and former students 500x more for our products to cover the fees. Or you can settle for 1 million and goodbye.
Sincerely,
Apple Legal
Due to the patent suit, we will be charging all your current and former students 500x more for our products to cover the fees. Or you can settle for 1 million and goodbye.
Sincerely,
Apple Legal
Probably not - it'll go to the administrators pockets to buy private jets and such. This is what pisses me off the most.
patent troll? reallyyyyy?
fanatism is a funny thing to watch...
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Anyways, apple can just use the samsung money and still have their $50B (If I remember correctly) in the bank.
Exactly.
There is nothing wrong here, if anything, the university is showing that you do not have to back down when a multi-billion dollar company thinks it can just steal other's work.
Good on them for taking Apple on.
So what did the University want? No one to ever use their research and findings to better the world? Call them engineers, pay everyone involved in the research a generous $150k years salary?
I'm still scratching my head that 90s processor tech was used in a 2013 product. Sounds like old tech to me? In 1998 I built my first computer. It had an Intel Pentium 2 350 MHz processor with a 60 MHz FSB. Todays (and 2013) tech is 4000 MHx processor reaching 800 MHz FSB.
Just seems insane that processor speed has improved greater than 10x since the patent.
also by the way intel bought a patent from WARF a couple of years back from the research group i was in and i did see a share of the money as well, years and years after the fact.
that's not how WARF rolls. the inventors will get a large share and the university will take the rest. the money definitely goes toward running the university. it is a public university so you're not going to see any private jets.
that's not how WARF rolls. the inventors will get a large share and the university will take the rest. the money definitely goes toward running the university. it is a public university so you're not going to see any private jets.
to be perfectly honest most of the stuff you find in microprocessors today was invented by semour cray way back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. goes way back to when he was at CDC. a big part of the performance boosts in microprocessors over the years has been due to applying all the mainframe CPU tricks to microprocessors.
by the way, multithreading (hyperthreading) was invented by a research group at university of washington. think intel did not pay for their patents?
http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/smt/index.html
you can see that this work was going on in the same mid-1990s timeframe as the wisconsin research ("multiscalar")
So a California jury found in favor of Apple? Color me shocked.
About as moronic as you completely ignoring the context of the poster's quote. The obviousness of the quote should not have been lost on you. Wizards are usually pretty smart.