Apple Still Owes Caltech $838 Million as Appeals Court Declines to Invalidate Patent

[MacRumors]

Apple in January was ordered to pay the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) $838 million for infringing on Caltech patents related to WiFi transmissions.

Apple was hoping to get one of the patents in the case invalidated, but today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against Apple and declined to invalidate the patent in question, upholding a prior decision from an administrative patent court.

According to Reuters, Apple tried to get the patent invalidated on "obviousness" grounds, suggesting the patent was an invention that came from standard product design and development and is obvious to experts.

The lawsuit dates back to 2016, when Caltech sued Apple and Broadcom for infringing on a series of patents granted between 2006 and 2012. The patents related to IRA/LDPC codes that use simpler encoding and decoding circuity for improved data transmission rates and performance, with the technologies used in the 802.11n and 802.11ac Wi-Fi standards supported by many Apple products.

Caltech claimed that Apple was infringing on four patents with the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple TV, Airport routers, and Apple Watch, and demanded a jury trial along with preliminary and permanent injunctions against Apple products in the U.S. that use Caltech technology.

A jury in January ruled in Caltech's favor, ordering Broadcom to pay $270 million and Apple to pay $838 million. Apple still plans to appeal the verdict.

Article Link: Apple Still Owes Caltech $838 Million as Appeals Court Declines to Invalidate Patent

 

[Baymowe335]

Appeal to you can't appeal anymore.

 

[Villarrealadrian]

Pay up already!! Haha

 

[farewelwilliams]

MacRumors forums: ”YEAH PAY UP APPLE"
Apple: "Ok." *raises prices of the next iPhone*

 

[BootsWalking]

"According to Reuters, Apple tried to get the patent invalidated on "obviousness" grounds, suggesting the patent was an invention that came from standard product design and development and is obvious to experts."

I've been constructing a machine-learning model that interprets human irony - when I feed this statement into it my computer melted.

 

[skysurfer]

Pocket Change
Pay up already, Apple, you know you didn't Invent this tech

 

[Smearbrick]

"According to Reuters, Apple tried to get the patent invalidated on "obviousness" grounds, suggesting the patent was an invention that came from standard product design and development and is obvious to experts."

I've been constructing a machine-learning model that interprets human irony - when I feed this statement to it my computer melted.

Awesome... just awesome!

 

[D.T.]

I love the "still owes", like it's a payment to a loan shark ...

Tim Cook's phone rings:

"Yo Timmy, this is Vinnie, yeah, you know that $838 mil you owe us, we're calling it in. You're late another week? That's another $100 bucks."

 

[Noctilux.95]

Pay up, Timmy!

 

[BC2009]

Horrible on the part of Caltech. Colleges and Universities should not be patenting inventions nor should they be acting like patent trolls. These institutions should be publishing papers on inventions to prevent others from patenting them (i.e.: establishing prior art). These institutions should be about the sharing and increasing knowledge and that typically comes through published papers from PhD and Masters candidates -- not from patents. The worst part is that Caltech is never going to reduce the invention to practice, so they are essentially a patent troll -- essentially creating a barrier to adopting the invention rather than promoting its adoption.

 

[1146331]

Apple is almost as bad as the NFL when it comes to screwing over schools.
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Horrible on the part of Caltech. Colleges and Universities should not be patenting inventions nor should they be acting like patent trolls. These institutions should be publishing papers on inventions to prevent others from patenting them (i.e.: establishing prior art). These institutions should be about the sharing and increasing knowledge and that typically comes through published papers from PhD and Masters candidates -- not from patents. The worst part is that Caltech is never going to reduce the invention to practice, so they are essentially a patent troll -- essentially creating a barrier to adopting the invention rather than promoting its adoption.

Riddle me this:
How does one continue research with no money? So what you are saying is that Colleges and Universities should bend over so Tim Cook can make another billion off of their hard work?

 

[Enerccio]

Horrible on the part of Caltech. Colleges and Universities should not be patenting inventions nor should they be acting like patent trolls. These institutions should be publishing papers on inventions to prevent others from patenting them (i.e.: establishing prior art). These institutions should be about the sharing and increasing knowledge and that typically comes through published papers from PhD and Masters candidates -- not from patents. The worst part is that Caltech is never going to reduce the invention to practice, so they are essentially a patent troll -- essentially creating a barrier to adopting the invention rather than promoting its adoption.

you know, just like apple!

 

[MagicKnights]

you know, just like apple!

Apple is a University/college?

 

[Rocko99991]

How is something like this collected if Apple refuses to pay?

 

[impulse462]

Horrible on the part of Caltech. Colleges and Universities should not be patenting inventions nor should they be acting like patent trolls. These institutions should be publishing papers on inventions to prevent others from patenting them (i.e.: establishing prior art). These institutions should be about the sharing and increasing knowledge and that typically comes through published papers from PhD and Masters candidates -- not from patents. The worst part is that Caltech is never going to reduce the invention to practice, so they are essentially a patent troll -- essentially creating a barrier to adopting the invention rather than promoting its adoption.

this statement is so incorrect.

if you invent something in your capacity at a university its your patent. it doesn't matter if youre at a company or university.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Horrible on the part of Caltech. Colleges and Universities should not be patenting inventions nor should they be acting like patent trolls. These institutions should be publishing papers on inventions to prevent others from patenting them (i.e.: establishing prior art). These institutions should be about the sharing and increasing knowledge and that typically comes through published papers from PhD and Masters candidates -- not from patents. The worst part is that Caltech is never going to reduce the invention to practice, so they are essentially a patent troll -- essentially creating a barrier to adopting the invention rather than promoting its adoption.

This is really dumb

Uni's own IP rights as it is a prime source of funding and so embracing the philosophy of encouraging young minds in research and development across all income brackets

Or do you think they just bought all the faculty new cars

You are way off base with this comment on how Uni's are financed promote R&D and teach our kids

Shameful IMO, Uni's are held to high standards certainly in the UK and are non profit making by charter

 

[The_Martini_Cat]

CalTech is one of the coolest places on earth and has educated some of my former co-workers. Once at a dinner I sat next to a prof who teaches introductory physics at CalTech. Guess what, you can't test out of his course. It is required of everyone. I asked him "what's the fun part of the course?" And that stumped him. "It's a pretty hard course," he said. But then he brightened up. "In the classroom, we do make some explosions!" So, Apple. GIVE CALTECH THE MONEY, DEEP SPACE DETECTION EQUIPMENT IS EXPENSIVE.

 

[techwhiz]

Appeal to you can't appeal anymore.

SCOTUS....

 

[Analog Kid]

I love the "still owes", like it's a payment to a loan shark ...

Tim Cook's phone rings:

"Yo Timmy, this is Vinnie, yeah, you know that $838 mil you owe us, we're calling it in.

How is something like this collected if Apple refuses to pay?

It sounds like the conversation goes something like: “that’s a nice spaceship you have— it’d be a shame if something happened to it...”

 

[DominikHoffmann]

So, once Apple pays up, every student admitted to Caltech will get a full-ride scholarship, right?

Properly invested, that money would fund 10% of that in scholarships, to the tune of $83M a year, which would fund roughly 2,000 students at $40,000 a year. Does Caltech have an enrollment of 2,000 students?

 

[PlayUltimate]

How is something like this collected if Apple refuses to pay?

There are ways.

Traditions & Pranks

www.admissions.caltech.edu

 

[ulyssesric]

Apple should pay CalTech what they deserved, and then sue Broadcom for hiding patent licensing details.

 

[Adoniram]

Help cleanse me of my patent ignorance. So if Apple lost their appeal... how exactly are they still going to appeal, as the article describes? Can they elevate to a higher court? What’s higher, or is it straight to the Supreme Court?

 

[Carnegie]

Help cleanse me of my patent ignorance. So if Apple lost their appeal... how exactly are they still going to appeal, as the article describes? Can they elevate to a higher court? What’s higher, or is it straight to the Supreme Court?

There are separate proceedings. The decision that came from the Federal Circuit today is from a case in which it was reviewing a decision made by the PTAB about the validity of one of Caltech’s patents.

That same patent is one of the three which Apple was found to have infringed in a separate case - a suit brought against it by Caltech. That case is still in the trial court; there are post-trial motions still to be considered. Apple will likely appeal that decision to the Federal Circuit.

It‘s also possible that Apple could ask the Supreme Court to review the decision the Federal Circuit issued today - the one reviewing the PTAB decision. But the Supreme Court would almost surely deny that request.

 

[jumpingcoco]

Pay up, Apple. Private research institutes desperately need more free cash to conduct bold experiments and research, this amount of money could be used for its best purposes, given that these days tuition can hardly pay off anything.
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Horrible on the part of Caltech. Colleges and Universities should not be patenting inventions nor should they be acting like patent trolls. These institutions should be publishing papers on inventions to prevent others from patenting them (i.e.: establishing prior art). These institutions should be about the sharing and increasing knowledge and that typically comes through published papers from PhD and Masters candidates -- not from patents. The worst part is that Caltech is never going to reduce the invention to practice, so they are essentially a patent troll -- essentially creating a barrier to adopting the invention rather than promoting its adoption.

dude, front-end research is freaking expensive, people outside academia have no clue about how expensive specialists, experiments and instruments are.