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Apple Ordered to Pay VirnetX Another $502.8 Million for Patent Infringement
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I tried looking for the Virnet FaceTime version app or similar to no avail (there’s just some ‘Gabriel Collaboration’ app)
Also tried their webpage that mentions some “Gabriel’s patented technology, it’s amazing” about 4 times in a short amount of page scrolling... no happiness chest box found there.
Took a look at its stock charts, looks seriously unstable and far from sustained growth... dunno about internals or other types of market value and holdings though, but for sure I’m not buying that.
So, if could you enlighten us how did it make you so happy? Did a couple of millions landed on your yard by sheer luck? Are you trying to make some piece of tech, actually release it in the practical sense and find it exhilarating that in doing so you could trigger a lawsuit against you by stepping on any random hidden patent land mine? Is it that a jury can pick a random number for your potentially unintentional bumping into one of the hundreds of thousands of patents?
... I want to be happy too
You just don’t “take” patented technology and use it for self gain... the way it works is that you create a product, make it work, iterate, deal with clients, issues and flaws, back and forth, iterate again, make it successful and a valuable useful thing until suddenly a random company sues you for many millions because a tiny blinking red light pattern behavior on your product is patented by them... over time many companies with non existing products start suing you to the cleaners. Apple happens to be big enough to survive them with ease, many other companies didn’t.
Try to go to their webpage and see if you can at a first glance tie their “Gabriel’s patented technology” to whatever Apple or any other company does... it doesn’t say what it does or what is it, just that it’s a ‘patent’ and I assume patented stuff is awesome?
The other issues with this is that why a jury picks how much punishment to apply up to the cents beyond just guilty or innocent. Imagine you commit a crime, say speeding criminal levels, and choose how many years and fines you are paying.
You missed out some important steps you should undertake when creating a product, e.g. check that someone else has not invented something like you're doing first, just in case you might be infringing on their IP.
Apple clearly didn't do that step, or chose to ignore their findings if they did undertake it [or perhaps they just took it; wouldn't be the first time]. For the record Apple acknowledge infringment and the only argument has been what were reasonable royalties for the use of someone's else property.
As for why a jury gets to decide, well because both parties must have accepted that would be the mechanism and of course the jury would have been guided by the judge as to the limitations of their authority on the matter.
As hard as it appears for you to accept, the legal system works when you win and you lose; every case has one of each!
For people celebrating the win by a patent troll, just know that you the consumer ultimately pays that. It is one of the reasons Apple's prices are so high.
Robert Kearns thought up the wiper delay and approached the big three, they all refused to buy or licence the IDEA, but then fitted it anyway, they stole his IDEA, he was not a patent troll. IP is intellectual property - it's an IDEA, not a THING.
In my career I've worked alot with the Chinese, they don't believe in IP they believe they can steal any IDEA and just use it without paying, which is now coming to bite them in the arse, because after years of copying they are starting to innovate and now they are starting to understand that ideas have value, the time taken to initially see the problem, the time taken to frame the problem, the time taken to come up with a working solution to the problem, now of course they want their ideas protected !!!
The problem is inventors need to paid so they keep inventing to make other peoples lives better, because without them we'd still be sleeping in a cave, wearing animal skins and hunting your food with a spear - and living to about 30.
Patents and inventions have quite a lot in common with the music industry, both systems clearly have problems, but the world would be a poorer place without either.
Ultimately there are rules and Apple knowing broke them, so now it's time to pay the fine.
If it is okay to steal from companies that don't make products, why does Apple pay money to use ARM-technology.
BTW, does Apple *make* products. As far as I know Apple designs and sells products, which are made by other companies somewhere in China.
It’s definitely weird for a jury of laypeople to determine damages. It’s like a jury deciding sentences, which in the US they don’t. We have judges for that. And it’s why these awards often later get reduced, sometimes dramatically.
The law should prevent that happening. Having to buy your competitor for less than the value of the penalty after fleecing their property is not a deterrent for bad behaviour.
Assuming you buy a product from them brand new. There are plenty of people that buy second hand phones and computers and never pay Apple a dime, (unless by some obscure logic you attribute something like their app store 30% cut as money you pay them).and Apple would just pass the cost right onto you.
Strange that your post was downvoted. As the points raised are all valid.
Hard to objectively determine that someone is a patent troll.
VirnetX doesn't really have products of their own. Their main business is in patent litigation. Ergo, they're a patent troll.
Read the history of VirnetX and you may not come to the same conclusion.
That was so strange. Since VirnetX never invented anything, I thought you were poetically building to a condemnation of that company for being the antithesis of a creator, an inventor, someone who, as you say, identifies, frames, and solves a problem. VirnetX of course does none of this. And suddenly you pivot to a letter-of-the-law statement defending them. Even if you side with them, I don’t understand how your preamble logically leads to your conclusion. Instead, your preamble reads more like part of an argument for patent law reform so parasites like VirnetX, the ambulance chasers of the corporate world, get castrated.
The price is still ridiculous though. 84 cent per unit, Apple doesn't even pay that much for ARM and PowerVR's IP combined .
They wanted out of a stupid case, so they buy their way out paying a hundred million dollars? I don’t think so.
But weren't three of the four patents invalidated? Apple has to pay up front now, and get money back later. In the court case, Apple was not allowed to argue that the patents have since been invalidated, because the judges won't let them. Apple may get their money back in ten years time when the patent invalidation trial ends, but by then the money will already be gone.
No biggie. I just assume they're fans of Apple bothered by the fact that I pointed out VirnetX's multiple victories, or fans of Trump triggered by my shade of Trump with the use of "the cyber". Upvotes, downvotes... meh. We're all rando's on the internet. We can't put too much importance on someone else's opinion of what we write.
/leaves thread to hatefully downvote every comment ever made by whoever downvoted my comment
