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Apple Must Pay Over $700 Million in Major Patent Damages Case
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[Edit: I didn't read carefully and didn't realize you were commenting on China, which does indeed steal IP and mostly get away with it. (That's different from a patent troll, though.)]
This thread is wild--I never thought you'd find me defending patent trolls, but people seem to have really insane ideas about what patent trolls are.
I'd throw in that the inventor MUST be a live human, and that patents cannot be sold. And software patents should be banned.
The problem is that many inventors won't have the resources to license or enforce their patents. They'll just be taken advantage of or infringed on.
I get the sentiment against companies that do nothing but manage the intellectual property (including licensing deals, monitoring for infringement, suing to enforce, etc.), but requiring inventors to handle that function and restricting their ability to sell their patents (by limiting who can buy them) is going to hurt inventors first and most of all.
(emphasis supplied) Prohibiting the sale of patents sounds like an absolute brilliant way to disincentivize inventors.
(For what it's worth, patents must list one or more human beings as inventors. But the inventor is often not the owner: many if not most companies and research universities will claim ownership of any patent filed by an employee within the scope of their employment.)
I agree that there is technically a risk to the inventors, but I think it would largely resolve itself. Patent lawyers would continue to be available and do their thing at the fees they currently do, and manufacturers would continue to license patents, just from originators, vs patent trolls.
Or, if I were more educated on the matter, I would suggest that whatever law all the other states seems to have that Texas doesn't which leads to all of these cases originating in Texas needs to be federalized to suppress the issue.
You have absolutely no idea what Tim Cook thinks, that statement is absurd. Apple has a team of lawyers that specialize in patent law, it’s their work & research that directs Apple’s endeavors when it comes to legal matters worldwide.
Apple’s lawyers are obviously not very good if they keep losing all their legal battles.
There’s no perfect solution, but something needs to change. That’s a reasonable option. I’m simply not fond of these companies that basically scoop up many patents and make money from strong-arming companies who actually make products.
Some people look at this a David taking on Goliath and cheer for David. But David didn’t fight as a mercenary to make money. He volunteered to fight for free to defend his people. He ended up king with a lot of riches, but taking on Goliath wasn’t about wealth.
I support the right of companies like this to exist, I simply don’t like judgments like this without there first being patent reform. That’s why I would like to see it overturned.
For sure. Way easier to just blatantly copy existing products and then give everyone the finger.
I feel like the iPhone 17 (base model) is going to be $2000 this year. Because THAT is what is going to happen, the costumor is going to pay for this.
Speaking of utter rubbish - that's exactly what the UK was asking for - an encryption backdoor. Currently, Apple has no means not available to anyone else to determine the data in a user's storage. In short - crack it the hard way.
The UK wanted to silently force Apple to break that contract and provide an easily openable lock to a user's storage via a key they hold, and the UK could just request it via a piece of paper.
And if you believe that such a feature, once it existed, wouldn't be exploited by every other nefarious player on the planet, you live in a nice rosy world where unicorns abound farting honeysuckle and leprechaun gold everywhere.
US Patent law is in fact federal and infringement actions are brought in federal court.
Plaintiffs have historically sought to bring their case in Texas because both judges and juries tend to be patent-owner friendly. It used to be the case that almost every patent infringement case was brought in the Eastern District of Texas. The Supreme Court decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC (2017) did restrict that practice to some degree. It clarified that for a corporation, "residence" for venue purposes is only in its state of incorporation. This narrowed the range of places where a company could be sued for patent infringement, effectively limiting the ability of patent owners (including patent trolls) to forum shop (they can only bring a case in the defendant's "residence" or "committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business").
That being said, many infringement actions can still be brought in Texas under those narrower venue rules, and Texas judges and juries continue to be viewed as sympathetic to patent-holders.
There's one particular example that I find fascinating: in most cases, federal district court judges tend to stay a pending lawsuit if the defendant files an Inter Partes Review (IPR), which is a relatively quick proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that allows a third party to challenge the validity of a patent on the grounds of prior art (existing patents or printed publications)—the IPR gives the allegedly infringing party a low-risk opportunity to invalidate the patent without risking a major adverse verdict. Not so if you filed in Waco. Judge Albright (Western District of Texas) used to have a standing policy of not staying the case when the defendant initiated an IPR, while at the same time moving his docket at a speedy pace (he might still have that policy, not sure). Because an IPR is effectively a low-risk option to challenge patents, taking that option off the table (by refusing to stay the case) would force the defendants to either settle or take a big gamble before a jury. Since rolling the dice with a Waco jury is risky, a lot of defendants would choose to settle. (The practice of filing in Waco in order to end up in front of Judge Albright changed in the summer of 2022, when the Western District changed its case assignment system such that Judge Albright would not receive every case filed in Waco. The trend of filing in W.D. Tex. also cooled after a few of Judge Albright's rulings were overturned on appeal.)
[#notlegaladvice]
Shrinking?
Apple UK sales hit record £1.5bn driven by strong demand
Apple UK sales hit record £1.5bn driven by strong demand - Retail Gazette
Apple’s sales in the UK have hit a new record of £1.5bn thanks to strong demand for its top-of-the-range iPhones.
www.retailgazette.co.uk
The UK is a significant market for Apple and it's unlikely they would consider leaving it. More likely they'll just have to add £20 or so to the price of each iPhone sold in order to recoup these extra costs. That's unfortunate, but not really too significant compared to the enormous tariff costs they now face in the USA.
It sounds like you’re describing something like a payday loan place. Places that take advantage of people to profit. “We realize you’re either too stupid or poor to patient your invention so we’ll buy it for you for $1500 and then win $50 million in a lawsuit against some company that tries to use it.”
Well, you are correct it also means that you don’t have to worry about some lawsuit you’re not expecting. If I decide to make a blue shirt and some someone patented a pointy color with a 45° angle, I’m all the sudden filing for bankruptcy because I can’t afford to pay the lawyers. Of course Apple can easily fight or pay these trolls but smaller companies would never be able to do that.
Because it's not a capitalistic market - patents are a temporary monopoly set on an idea. Whoever has a patent can decide whether it is $0.05 or $100 of the cost of the phone, and there may not be a way to avoid it if say it is a mandatory technology for 5G phones.
Which AFAICT was Apple's original dispute - that the pricing was not in line with FRAND guarantees that were made for the patented technology to be used in the 5G specifications.
Yes, that the above is a load of rubbish. So they're fining their way towards extorting a FTA from the US as they hurt our companies. Their courts are as independent as ours are non-partisan so yes, everything after Load of rubbish in the quote above is in fact a load of rubbish.
Yikes, that's a reductionist take on the matter!
The company sued in London, knowing full well that it is difficult to win against Apple in the US as it will lie like a trooper.
“Apple can still petition the UK Supreme Court to review the case, but such appeals are usually granted only in limited circumstances, such as significant points of law or matters of public interest.”
A free trade agreement has nothing to do with fines. The courts are simply enforcing the law. Apple broke the law so they get fined. I don’t know why you find that difficult to understand. Forget the conspiracy theories and look at the facts.