Apple Ordered to Pay $625 Million in VirnetX Patent Dispute

[ackmondual]

apple did lawsuit on Samsung for their "patent" for rounded corners….

apple is so ridiculous…

In 2011 they sent their lawyers to threaten a woman which had just opened a little café in germany to help young mothers with their childs. She offered tea, coffee and her famous apple-cake.
So she named the café "Apfelkind" (= apple-child) and draw a logo of a RED apple with the silhouette of a baby inside AND the hand-written-style name "Apfelkind" beneath. NOBODY can be confused, there is just no similarity at all (look at the photo in the german article). Of course she wanted to protect her "brand" - because if her project would grow, she planned to sell bakery products and cups and so on with her logo on it. and perhaps open more cafés.

After not even 2 weeks she received threatening letters of apple´s lawyers…
(for the records: apple is the brand that stole the name and logo of apple records - it took until 2007 that they made a deal and finally payed for it!)
She thought then, this is a joke of someone - it was NOT. It was apple!
apple decision makers are reckless destroyers for profits sake and they are maniac.
(One day apple will perhaps go to court against GOD because he created the universe with apples on earth without apple´s permission?)

So, the poor young lady had no money to defend herself - but informed the press.
Many Tv-channels and national newspapers now informed the german public about the apple-methods of lawyer-terrorism on everyone.

http://gawker.com/5853402/apple-threatens-to-sue-tiny-german-cafe-whose-logo-is-an-apple

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtscha...fe-wehe-sie-veraeppeln-apples-apfel-1.1173840

It took TWO YEARS with the public getting more and more angry until apple stopped this ridiculous action…. in 2013 !!

LOL. Apple choose an item that appears commonly in nature and is highly recognized, often a good item. What were they expecting... that only they would be the sole owner of that? Apple was REALLY reaching to think that their's and the Apfelkind logo would be that easily confused.

There was also a story about how Microsoft went after a company called Mike Rowe Soft... which was really just the guy's name. M$ issued a public statement saying they backed down, and thought it was silly of them.

 

[PrimeMatrix]

Just a ploy to adversely affect Apple's super high security protocols. ;-)
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Apple really does have too much money. They need to give at least 1/2 of it away. Some to charities. Lots to me. There needs to be laws that limit how much money a person or company can have.

Socialist?

 

[kdarling]

apple is so ridiculous…

In 2011 they sent their lawyers to threaten a woman which had just opened a little café in germany to help young mothers with their childs. She offered tea, coffee and her famous apple-cake.
...
After not even 2 weeks she received threatening letters of apple´s lawyers…

Apple's lawyers think everything is a copy

I remember not just the German Apfelkind case, but also Apple trying to shut down a NYC recycling logo:

Apparently California lawyers have never heard of "The Big Apple" (New York City's nickname, which predates Apple Inc by many decades).

 

[dk001]

Apple's lawyers think everything is a copy

I remember not just the German Apfelkind case, but also Apple trying to shut down a NYC recycling logo:

View attachment 614630

Apparently California lawyers have never heard of "The Big Apple" (New York City's nickname, which predates Apple Inc by many decades).

Was't that a section of the 40 Acres? That was bulldozed.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

As for greed, ruthless copying and abusing monopolist position:

It was f.flux that invented and developed an app.
(By a scientific view this app was, still is and will always be useless, but that´s not the point here.)
They sold it in apple´s app store.
Then - one day - apple stopped selling the app.
Short time later they announced the same app with its new name: "nightshift" as THEIR future OWN highly innovative new app…
They just stole it from flux.

Apple stole also the name of apple (The beatles label) - but not only the name - also the logo.
It was not before 2007 (some decades later) that apple inc. admitted finally they stole all that and finally payed for it.

 

[Botts85]

Apple's lawyers think everything is a copy

I remember not just the German Apfelkind case, but also Apple trying to shut down a NYC recycling logo:

View attachment 614630

Apparently California lawyers have never heard of "The Big Apple" (New York City's nickname, which predates Apple Inc by many decades).

Apple has to defend their trademark to keep it valid. Whether or not they stop after getting a negative response to their C&D letter is up to them. Scary for the other business though.

If the trademark is ever challenged Apple could point to the C&Ds as evidence they are in fact defending their trademarks.

Back to the topic at hand though, one questions why Apple didn't just buy VirnetX. The fine is 2x VirnetX's current market cap and we'd get better FaceTime back.

 

[samcraig]

Apple has to defend their trademark to keep it valid. Whether or not they stop after getting a negative response to their C&D letter is up to them. Scary for the other business though.

If the trademark is ever challenged Apple could point to the C&Ds as evidence they are in fact defending their trademarks.

Back to the topic at hand though, one questions why Apple didn't just buy VirnetX. The fine is 2x VirnetX's current market cap and we'd get better FaceTime back.

Why do people think this is always an option? One answer is - they didn't think they would have to pay. Another answer is that VirnetX didn't want to sell because their reach goes beyond just Apple. And there are probably a dozen more reasons why Apple wouldn't buy a company for a few patents.

 

[kdarling]

Apple has to defend their trademark to keep it valid.

Yes, you have to defend your trademark against marks that could be confused with it.

In the above examples, that was not possible. They not only looked different from the registered Apple trademark (an apple with a bite out of it - and visually, a right leaning single leaf with no stem), but were totally different industries as well (trademarks are by field).

Back to the topic at hand though, one questions why Apple didn't just buy VirnetX. The fine is 2x VirnetX's current market cap and we'd get better FaceTime back.

Yeah, that wouldn't attract the attention of the DOJ at all, buying a company that's suing you

Okay, in this case many of the shares are owned by the patent inventors and chief officers themselves. Another larger chunk are owned by mutual funds investors. I think the amount of stock available on the open market is less than 50%, and that's all that could be bought easily by Apple.

Moreover, as soon as Apple bought more than 5%, they'd have to notify the SEC and state their intentions. Which would alert everyone and the stock price would skyrocket.

 

[ackmondual]

As for greed, ruthless copying and abusing monopolist position:

It was f.flux that invented and developed an app.
(By a scientific view this app was, still is and will always be useless, but that´s not the point here.)
They sold it in apple´s app store.
Then - one day - apple stopped selling the app.
Short time later they announced the same app with its new name: "nightshift" as THEIR future OWN highly innovative new app…
They just stole it from flux.

This ^^
Some have stated that f.flux just used research information from another company, that they didn't do anything. They did create an app for that, and it's hard to deny that if it weren't for them, Apple would've came up with it on their own. No small amount of features used in their updates and next gen Iphones come from Cydia or Android.