And Apple’s been profiting on it ever since by claiming that FaceTime is more secure than other video chat methods.
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Apple Ordered to Pay VirnetX Another $502.8 Million for Patent Infringement
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and Apple would just pass the cost right onto you.
If a corporation just exists to exploit patents, they deserve to lose. I remember reading an article about some of the damned absurd patent trolls that have popped up. Some corporations have patented some absurd things, and wom billions, only to be overturned by later courts. Imagine someone successfully patenting a device that could encompass 'a pointing and selection device that interacts with a CRT screen'.
Would they be able to sue every company that ever manufactured a mouse? How about a 'light pen'? How many people use CRT's? How many people use 'light pens' anymore? How many people have ever touched a 'light pen'?
Should that ambiguous of a patent result in a judgement against every mouse manufacturer? I say of course not, but there are jurisdictions that would have no problem siding with the patent holder.
Patent abuse IS a thing. It has to be addressed. It has to be ended. We can't have nice things in a lot of circumstances because of patent abuse. If you have a patent, and aren't making use of it in a product your corporation sells, you should not be able to sue other corporations for using your patent. Use it or lose it... *shrug*
You must not be aware of what patent trolls are...
What has that to do with the patent Apple offered too little money for?Let me download the VirnetX app and compare it with Apple's FaceTime app to see if it the same... oh wait, what?!?
I am genuinely interested & this seems to be key to the whole discussion so please tell as I am totally unware.
What exactly are VirnetX's technologies? Why are they so special & unique that they deserve a patent. Are they really truly the only possible implementation to something making it impossible for Apple to develop their own methods? Is that not an example of where a patent stops working when the patent is too vague that "everything" falls underneath it?
This whole thing needs answers to those questions to determine who is right and who is wrong. It could literally be argued both ways quite easily without knowing the facts.
Apple fan boys are the worst. SMH. Apple can do no wrong in their eyes. Give me a break. 🙄
there is a big difference between Apple and patent trolls, not saying Apple is perfect. Watch this documentary and it explains a lot
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Patents are broken in the USA because lawyers makes a ton of money out of it and they contribute a ton of money to political parties that are happy to keep it this way.
I am not familiar with virtnetX case but patent are suppose to protect non trivial innovations yet everybody (including Apple and I am not faulting them because everybody does it) try to patent anything and then unleash their lawyers.
But I am not very sympathetic with Apple or any other Big Tech because at the end of the day they are the ones that benefits the most from this system (beside the lawyers).
I am not familiar with virtnetX case but patent are suppose to protect non trivial innovations yet everybody (including Apple and I am not faulting them because everybody does it) try to patent anything and then unleash their lawyers.
But I am not very sympathetic with Apple or any other Big Tech because at the end of the day they are the ones that benefits the most from this system (beside the lawyers).
Patents were not meant to protect an investor class, it was to protect an active corporation's products from being stolen and used by another corporation in their products. I don't think those that originated the whole patent process thought that a corporation would excel at buying patents from other (bankrupt) corporations, turn patent defense into their 'product', and use well paid lawyers to defend them, even if they themselves know they are crap patents.
Some of the patents I've read sound like they were written by a three year-old. They are so vague, and vast that they could almost be stretched to encompass damn near anything. And THAT should be illegal.
Here's an example of a patent troll in action. Imagine, coming up with a patent that could be stretched to include people checking the status of their packages sent through USPS. You are sued for allowing people to see where their package is, even though you settled that dispute with USPS directly! Imagine the gall, and balls to assert that just because you allowed the USPS website to search for shipping information without demanding a monetary judgement, you are suing everyone else using their own server side scripts to essentially do the same damned thing! Yeah, but often very ignorant courts, and equally ignorant jurists are trusted to rule in cases such as these. Some jurisdictions also make a killing off of the 'gifts' of litigants in cases where they know darn well they have a snowballs chance in hell of winning in any other jurisdiction.
Organizations that troll patents are a very huge concern for companies in this country. Did you hear of the troll that sued auto manufacturers for the delay feature in windshield wipers? Its epic. They tried to sue everyone they could, and made a mint doing it. Something so obvious, something so easy to due multiple ways, and yet nearly everyone that did 'it' (time delayed wiper action) was subject, and threatened by that parasite. I read that some companies settled, payed the ransom, to continue doing what they were doing. A simple feedback loop with a capacitor, that triggered the wiper motor to cycle. Yikes...
Copyrights are almost as bad. I think Micky Mouse is now covered for the next 125 years? Wow... It was never supposed to be used for that.
Amazing how all the Apple haters flock to say "good" and "apple deserves this" or "why did Apple offer to pay them then?"
Simple. Knowing how these guy make their revenue. Apple most likely offered to pay them up front to make them go away. VirnetX probably knew they could make much much more in litigation since they've been doing it for 10 years. Apple is not a unique target. They have gone after several large tech companies.
They are scum. They are no different than other lawsuit trolls. Perhaps some remember reading stories of people in wheelchairs finding random houses they had no business with, and would sue the owners due to lack of handicap compliance? Easy pay outs by preying on easy targets.
en.wikipedia.org
Simple. Knowing how these guy make their revenue. Apple most likely offered to pay them up front to make them go away. VirnetX probably knew they could make much much more in litigation since they've been doing it for 10 years. Apple is not a unique target. They have gone after several large tech companies.
They are scum. They are no different than other lawsuit trolls. Perhaps some remember reading stories of people in wheelchairs finding random houses they had no business with, and would sue the owners due to lack of handicap compliance? Easy pay outs by preying on easy targets.
VirnetX - Wikipedia
Patent trolls!
Just abolish software patents in the USA like it is in most (if not all) of the rest of the world.
There's no point in having software patents.
Just abolish software patents in the USA like it is in most (if not all) of the rest of the world.
There's no point in having software patents.
Well apple sued Samsung for rounded corners on their icons.
You may not have been paying attention, but this whole thing has been answered. It may not be the answer you want it to be, but it has been emphatically answered on multiple occasions. The courts have sided with VirnetX over and over. If you're genuinely curious about the case, and not just rhetorically "needing answers", there's ample information about the cases and conclusions. All right on the cyber.
The jury heard evidence (e.g. testimony from expert witnesses) relating to the value of the infringed patents. This is the kind of issue that juries routinely have to decide.
I haven't looked at VirnetX's financial filings in a while. But the last time I did, it had no regular revenue to speak of. It was clear that essentially the entire current value of the company was based on what the market expected it to get from its suits against Apple.
So there wouldn't have been anything worth paying for, even assuming the owners would have been willing to sell at a price close to the company's market value. And even if Apple bought the company, that wouldn't save it from having to pay substantial portions of these judgments. VirnetX doesn't get to keep all of the money it will get from these suits. It has the right to sue for infringement of these patents based on agreements it made with the patents' (previous) owners. Those agreements require VirnetX to pay part of whatever it recovers to those owners.
Apple had good reason to believe that it wasn't stealing IP - i.e., that the patents weren't valid.
Indeed, all of the patent claims which Apple was ultimately found to have infringed in this case - those which this judgment are based on - have been invalidated by the USPTO (i.e. the PTAB).