Apple Ordered to Pay VirnetX Another $502.8 Million for Patent Infringement

[Kierkegaarden]

Juries are asked to make decisions beyond their core competencies every day. For example, what jurors are expert on forensic evidence like ballistics, fingerprints, and DNA? This is why there are expert witnesses at these trials.

In the case of your comparisons, these are either/or decisions. How many choices are there when determining economic penalties? I’m guessing that ten different “experts” would have ten different answers. What exactly is the jury deciding on — the total amount, or a yay/nay on one amount presented to them?

 

[H2SO4]

You can look up their financials on your own if you like.

Here's a key quote that really says it all:



Whether it's their intent or not, their revenues don't come from product sales, but from patent litigation.



If that's all or most of you do, yes, that's literally the definition. Any further questions?

Don't give me that look it up yourself rubbish, I asked about a statement YOU made.
You can't have it both ways If you have a single patent you don't use, you're a troll. I suspect a few 'upstanding' companies do it when it suits them.

 

[H2SO4]

The law should stop patent trolls like Virnetx from existing.

And ANY OTHER company that has parents it has no intention of using.

 

[H2SO4]

Not necessarily but if all you do with them is sue companies with the hope that it will pay off then that is exactly the definition of a patent troll: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/patent-troll.asp

"While the practice of patent trolling is not illegal, a company that acts as a patent troll files patent claims without any intention of ever developing a product or service. The end result is bad faith infringement threats and licensing demands that require companies to spend a significant amount of money to settle these claims without any addition to the public good."

Loads of silicon valley companies do that.

 

[cmaier]

Apple's claims against Samsung focus on Galaxy's design features, such as the look of its screen icons


Apple's evidence submitted to the court included side-by-side image comparisons of iPhone 3GS and i9000 Galaxy S to illustrate the alleged similarities in packaging and icons for apps. However, the images were later found to have been tampered with in order to make the dimensions and features of the two different products seem more similar, and counsel for Samsung accused Apple of submitting misleading evidence to the court.[11][13]

"Even the icons in earlier versions of the Samsung smart phones looked different because they had a variety of shapes – and did not appear as a field of square icons with rounded corners," Reuters quotes the lawsuit as saying about Samsung's Android-based interface.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab line, it is to be noted, doesn't use those "square icons with rounded corners" that Apple called out in its comments on the Korean giant's smartphones – that is, unless those offending icons are provided by a third-party app, such Amazon's Kindle.



WOOOH


i give up at this point...LOL

And yet they never asserted any patent on that, did they?

 

[cmaier]

I don't know about 3 years, but yes.

Four of the patents involved are from 1998. They may have been particularly clever techniques for networking in the late 90s, but even just ten years later, technology had evolved significantly.

It typically takes 3 years just to obtain a patent after filing.

 

[BC2009]

Don't steal other company's IP.

Don’t steal patent troll’s IP?

Please tell us all about the great products you use from Virnet X.

Patents were never meant to be used as weapons to stifle innovation. Patents were invented to allow IP to be known while granting a limited time exclusivity to the invention. Not meant to be put in a stash and pulled out for lawsuits when real innovators stumbled on to your obscure patent.

 

[dogslobber]

Don’t steal patent troll’s IP?

Please tell us all about the great products you use from Virnet X.

Patents were never meant to be used as weapons to stifle innovation. Patents were invented to allow IP to be known while granting a limited time exclusivity to the invention. Not meant to be put in a stash and pulled out for lawsuits when real innovators stumbled on to your obscure patent.

Calling a company a 'troll' doesn't negate the IP infringement that Apple did. Why are you condoning Apple's criminal behavior?

 

[Carnegie]

Calling a company a 'troll' doesn't negate the IP infringement that Apple did. Why are you condoning Apple's criminal behavior?

Criminal behavior? Do you think patent infringement, even if it occurred here, is a crime?

That asked, it's worth noting again that every single patent claim which Apple was ultimately found to have infringed in this case has since been invalidated by the PTAB. Apple had good reasons to believe it wasn't infringing the patents in question, even after it became aware of them.

 

[Carnegie]

Let's see you use FaceTime without virnetX's technology

As long as one isn't still using, say, an iPhone 4 running iOS 4, that should be pretty easy to do. (Does FaceTime still work on older devices running such older versions of iOS? I don't really know.)

The infringement that occurred (by FaceTime) was with much older devices.

 

[chucker23n1]

You can't have it both ways If you have a single patent you don't use, you're a troll.

…that's not even remotely what's being argued about VirnetX.

 

[chucker23n1]

It typically takes 3 years just to obtain a patent after filing.

I honestly don't care. IT moves so fast that a patent that may seem like a brilliant implementation in 2020 would have converged multiple ways by 2023, and is obvious by 2030.

 

[cmaier]

I honestly don't care. IT moves so fast that a patent that may seem like a brilliant implementation in 2020 would have converged multiple ways by 2023, and is obvious by 2030.

That’s the thing, though. it may be obvious by 2030, but part of the reason for that is that the invention in 2020 moved the state of the art along just a little bit. If a patent is only valid until it becomes obvious, it isn’t of much use to anyone.

 

[cmaier]

As long as one isn't still using, say, an iPhone 4 running iOS 4, that should be pretty easy to do. (Does FaceTime still work on older devices running such older versions of iOS? I don't really know.)

The infringement that occurred (by FaceTime) was with much older devices.

which makes me wonder about the size of the damages verdict. after all, the test is what a reasonable royalty would be. How much would apple have paid virnetx at the time the infringement started, had it been aware it needed a license, given that they could apparently work around the issue quite easily?

 

[chucker23n1]

That’s the thing, though. it may be obvious by 2030, but part of the reason for that is that the invention in 2020 moved the state of the art along just a little bit. If a patent is only valid until it becomes obvious, it isn’t of much use to anyone.

The question is whether the state of the art moved because someone had their investment protected by a patent, or if it would've happened anyway.

Personally, I would argue IT is one of the areas where patents do more harm than good.

 

[chucker23n1]

given that they could apparently work around the issue quite easily?

Didn't Apple have to rewrite the stack to no longer be peer-to-peer, thus requiring significant effort and also ending up with a worse product?

 

[cmaier]

Didn't Apple have to rewrite the stack to no longer be peer-to-peer, thus requiring significant effort and also ending up with a worse product?

Do you think it cost them $500 million? Because, if not, seems like an ordinary person would choose to spend whatever they spent and not pay a reasonable royalty that ended up being $500 million.

 

[dogslobber]

Criminal behavior? Do you think patent infringement, even if it occurred here, is a crime?

That asked, it's worth noting again that every single patent claim which Apple was ultimately found to have infringed in this case has since been invalidated by the PTAB. Apple had good reasons to believe it wasn't infringing the patents in question, even after it became aware of them.

You're picking at nuts and bolts with trying to ascertain some validity into Apple's illegal behavior. At a minimum, Apple must pay punitive damages and royalties for IP infringement which is a crime. Don't lose sight of what and who is actually on trial here.

 

[farewelwilliams]

So would Virnetx, so your point is useless then.

That doesn't even make sense.

 

[macsrcool1234]

how about them apples, Apple?

 

[daabido]

Apple "offered" 113M$, so clearly, they know that they violated a patent ... hence, no-one really should complain that Apple has to pay, yes, maybe about the amount, but not the fact that they violated a patent.
I know this is not what people here want to hear ...

That was just f* off money.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

patent trolls.

they're the reason FaceTime isn't "open" BTW.

Oh please, as if Apple, the kings of the walled garden, are in the business of open sourcing everything, spare me the fake drama.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Oh please, as if Apple, the kings of the walled garden, are in the business of open sourcing everything, spare me the fake drama.

so you're refusing to look at the facts? ok.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

so you're refusing to look at the facts? ok.

Nah, I'm just refusing to get a sob on for poor poor Apple

 

[Enlightened Doggo]

VirnetX basically patented VPN, an obviously preexisting technology... As a software engineer, this is why I honestly believe software patents should not exist.