Apple Saves $300 Million After Appeals Court Win in LTE Patent Fight

[I7guy]

What about Optis makes you think they're a troll?

- The lawsuit is clearly not just a nuisance suit asking for cost-of-litigation settlement. The economics are clearly based on real value of the patented contributions to the LTE standard.
- The patents came out of LG, Panasonic, and Samsung. These are real bona-fide innovators that contributed real bona-fide innovations to LTE.
- The patents survived numerous validity challenges at both the district court and the (notoriously defendant-friendly) PTAB. Apple spent millions trying to invalidate them and failed. It is beyond dispute now that the patents are good and valid.
- To get to trial, the suit had to survive several offramps and narrowing. Rule 11, motions to dismiss, motions for summary judgement, claim construction, motions for judgement as a matter of law, etc. To get this far, a plaintiff has to run the table on every issue. But a defendant has to only win one issue to wipe it all away.

All of this is not proof that Optis is right and deserves $500M. Rather, it is evidence that Optis is not merely just a troll.

OJ was also guilty. “If the lawsuit don’t fit, you must acquit.”

 

[LawJolla]

Say what? LG, Panasonic and Samsung are “small inventors” that weren’t able to challenge Apple and their only recourse was to sell to a patent troll?

I know I’m asking a lot, but try reading the whole post.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Quick moment of clarity...

We have patent trolls because the infringing company won't take the inventor / small company seriously, or the company wants value from their invention, the infringer won't pay a license, and the inventor doesn't want the burden of litigation.

The small inventor is left with: paying millions up front to litigate, finding a law firm that will take it on consignment (extremely rare), watching your work be taken, or selling to a troll.

The larger company is left with: watching their work be stolen or litigate against a company that can hurt you in the marketplace.

LG Electronics, Panasonic, and Samsung got paid for their LTE inventions by the troll because Apple ripped off their patents and didn't want to pay. Apple infringed. And now they're going to pay a lot more.

Apple and other companies can stop patent trolls by not shrugging off initial claims and/or using their weight to bully companies out of litigation.

Best post in here.
Thank you 👏

Refreshing to have something informative that isn't just "Yay Apple" or "Screw Apple" 😂

 

[chris1958]

Ugh patent trolls. I do understand the need and usefulness of patents, and the subsequent protection on them. And I do understand that you can’t always (directly) use a patent. But these trolls have made a business model out of filing as many useless patents without any intent of ever developing a useful product or service and the start litigating everybody into oblivion.

But this patent is standard-essential and therefore hardly useless.

 

[oneMadRssn]

It’s not wrong to sell or license patents, but I’d argue it is wrong to buy and weaponize them solely for litigation, which is what Optis does.

The key differentiator you are deliberately glazing over is that in all your other cited examples, they are the originators of the patents, and not a third party that purchased them and then used them as basis for litigation.
Anyway, found the Optis PR guy. Figures they'd deploy the forum version of their trolls to sway opinion.

It's a distinction without a difference. It does not matter if a licensing campaign goes through an intermediary.

If a company develops some tech, why should that company be the one to licensing it? Why can't they sell it to someone else who specializes in licensing?

It's no different from any other business. Most apple farmers don't sell apples directly to consumers--instead they sell them to distributors, which sell them to grocery stores and restaurants. Are apple distributors and grocery stores "apple trolls" because they do not themselves grow apples?

Moreover, the problem is that if there were no licensing intermediaries, then there would be no market for patents and inventors would not be compensated. Yes of course NPEs leverage IP to extract a profit, but they first pay the actual researchers and inventors for that IP because IP has value. If you impose a rule that only inventors can monetize IP, then IP has no value in the market and inventors stop getting paid, startups stop getting loans on IP, etc.

 

[surferfb]

It's a distinction without a difference. It does not matter if a licensing campaign goes through an intermediary.

If a company develops some tech, why should that company be the one to licensing it? Why can't they sell it to someone else who specializes in licensing?

It's no different from any other business. Most apple farmers don't sell apples directly to consumers--instead they sell them to distributors, which sell them to grocery stores and restaurants. Are apple distributors and grocery stores "apple trolls" because they do not themselves grow apples?

Moreover, the problem is that if there were no licensing intermediaries, then there would be no market for patents and inventors would not be compensated. Yes of course NPEs leverage IP to extract a profit, but they first pay the actual researchers and inventors for that IP because IP has value. If you impose a rule that only inventors can monetize IP, then IP has no value in the market and inventors stop getting paid, startups stop getting loans on IP, etc.

I mean, if you want to fall on your sword defending patent trolls, you're more than welcome to, but we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Even people who have worked for patent trolls agree they harm innovation. Read the link, he even addresses your "it's the only way for inventors to get paid" argument.

 

[VulchR]

I admit I know mostly about the issues around drug and gene patenting, but it seems the system is totally screwed up. The purpose of patents is to promote innovation. Like many aspects of the law, patents were meant to protect individual inventors, but have been co-opted by companies to make a quick buck.We shouldn't be patenting general classes of products (drugs, electronic chips, methods of communication, etc.). We should only allow patents on how those products are manufactured. The the race would be on to be more efficient in producing the product, which would lower prices, possibly environmental impacts etc. Otherwise these patent cases just drive up consumer prices and stifle any refinement of the manufacturing process.

 

[oneMadRssn]

I mean, if you want to fall on your sword defending patent trolls, you're more than welcome to, but we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Even people who have worked for patent trolls agree they harm innovation. Read the link, he even addresses your "it's the only way for inventors to get paid" argument.

I am very familiar with Blumberg. I don't disagree with much in that article when you consider when it was written. But I don't think it's applicable anymore.

First, it was written almost 10 years ago. You can write an entire treatise about how much has changed since then. I'll admit - the 2010s were a high-point for NPEs. But the law, the patent institutions, and big tech are all much different today. As he says, back then you can get pretty far with low-quality patents. Today, you'll get nowhere without the tippy-top best patents. Today, defendants have many more arrows in their quivers. The pendulum has swung in the completely other direction since then, big tech today can basically infringe with impunity (the term "efficient infringement" was coined). In standards, hold out is a much bigger problem than hold up. And big tech has really taken advantage of this, there are countless dead startups that had their tech stolen by big tech, and they had no defense because patents were weakened.

Second, I believe Blumberg has moderated his views since this article was written. Lenovo sold to NPEs during his time there. Today, he works for what is effectively an NPE: VideoLabs acquires patents it did not invent and licenses them in a pool-like manner. Is Blumberg now a troll?

Third, (I hate saying this) but Musk was right when he said: patents are for the weak. To be clear, I detest Musk, but he is right in this case. Patents are for those that don't have power, don't have money, and don't have any other way to protect their space in the market. The system only works if buying and selling this important asset is possible.

 

[alecgold]

It's a distinction without a difference. It does not matter if a licensing campaign goes through an intermediary.

If a company develops some tech, why should that company be the one to licensing it? Why can't they sell it to someone else who specializes in licensing?

It's no different from any other business. Most apple farmers don't sell apples directly to consumers--instead they sell them to distributors, which sell them to grocery stores and restaurants. Are apple distributors and grocery stores "apple trolls" because they do not themselves grow apples?

Moreover, the problem is that if there were no licensing intermediaries, then there would be no market for patents and inventors would not be compensated. Yes of course NPEs leverage IP to extract a profit, but they first pay the actual researchers and inventors for that IP because IP has value. If you impose a rule that only inventors can monetize IP, then IP has no value in the market and inventors stop getting paid, startups stop getting loans on IP, etc.

Hmmm, where to begin.
What is developing tech? Writing up a story of something that might or might not happen at some point, filing that for a minimal fee and hoping to become rich one day? Or developing tech, selling a product (or more limited a service) and contributing something to society?
The first one is what is done too often with patents. The latter one is what patents where ment to be for: protecting serious developers that spend time, energy, money, resources in short to make something that is better.
The first one is what happens with Optis: they have never made or sold any product or service and they litigate everything into oblivion.

Apple farmers in your example do a lot: they plant trees, the nourish them, protect them, they work hard and when they have the product they choose not to sell them to an individual, but use a market function. But they don’t write hypothetical patents, they don’t litigate, they work, they develop a business, they contribute useful to society.