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

ulyssesric said:
Apple should pay CalTech what they deserved, and then sue Broadcom for hiding patent licensing details.
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Apple shouldn’t even be on the hook for anything. They are just using a chip from Broadcom. This is double dipping and should not be allowed.
You should not be allowed to license to a chip maker (or not in this case) and then expect users of that chip to need a license as well. Any violation should be on the chip maker.
 
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daveak said:
Apple shouldn’t even be on the hook for anything. They are just using a chip from Broadcom. This is double dipping and should not be allowed.
You should not be allowed to license to a chip maker (or not in this case) and then expect users of that chip to need a license as well. Any violation should be on the chip maker.
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If Broadcom had a license to use the patents (in this way), then Apple wouldn’t have been infringing. But Broadcom didn’t have a license, so both Broadcom and Apple were infringing. For that matter, we‘re infringing if we use that functionality of our Apple devices.

That said, Broadcom’s contract with Apple likely requires it to indemnify Apple in such situations. So Apple probably won’t be on the hook in this case.
 
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838 mega bucks - mucho bucks on the line
large market cap corp = large target for lawsuit mills
aapl legal dept stays well employed
 
BC2009 said:
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.
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I cannot help but think that you wouldn't feel this way if the ruling wasn't against Apple
 
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DominikHoffmann said:
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?
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So college should be free because.......?

You don't really think that a scholorship actually covers ALL the cost of operating a facility and funding its projects do you? Do you know anything about investments and how they enable organizations to have more money in the future that they can use for things such as..... research & development..... benefits for staff.... repairs & other operational costs.....?
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sw1tcher said:
I cannot help but think that you wouldn't feel this way if the ruling wasn't against Apple
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Naturally.... this forum is filled with those blindly devotional to Apple.
 
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BC2009 said:
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.
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Sounds like your whining that Apple is stealing tech.
 
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impulse462 said:
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.
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Wrong, as much public and private money goes into these colleges and universities, any inventions made there should be public domain. And why should Apple pay, they are using the chips from someone else.
 
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How absolutely typical of Apple. They have the absolute chutzpah to demand & threaten companies pay them for asinine reasons (ie- rounded corners) but when Apple willfully violates patents belonging to others they demand the courts invalidate them and the chorus from Apple zealots is that they are patent trolls.
 
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Naraxus said:
How absolutely typical of Apple. They have the absolute chutzpah to demand & threaten companies pay them for asinine reasons (ie- rounded corners) but when Apple willfully violates patents belonging to others they demand the courts invalidate them and the chorus from Apple zealots is that they are patent trolls.
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Citation to show they “willfully“ violated patents. ( the Apple critics seem to be creating hyperbole)
 
Carnegie said:
If Broadcom had a license to use the patents (in this way), then Apple wouldn’t have been infringing. But Broadcom didn’t have a license, so both Broadcom and Apple were infringing. For that matter, we‘re infringing if we use that functionality of our Apple devices.

That said, Broadcom’s contract with Apple likely requires it to indemnify Apple in such situations. So Apple probably won’t be on the hook in this case.
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The last part is what I was wondering about as I don't remember if any other of Broadcom’s customers were included in other lawsuits.

Is the complaint something Apple & Broadcom implemented for just Apple products? Original story mentioned Apple making up no more than 15% of Broadcom’s net revenue, but they didn't implement any of this with any other AC or N WiFi chip they sold to others?

It would be interesting to see how Caltec's patent differs from the mentioned related WiFi standards and why not part of standards. Also, if any one else just paid and how similar their encoding and decoding was to what Apple and Broadcom implemented for Apple products.

Code baffles politicians, judges, and people like myself. How much of these patents were fine tuning coding and taking advantage of a patent system not designed well for software and coding versus how much was something truly new, revolutionary, and never thought of before deserving of a patent.

I think patents for smaller software & coding pieces of a much bigger pie are looked at less to protect product being put on market themselves and more to sit back and see if others write anything similar and use it as a part of a successful product. Some of these items just seem small pieces that file first and just wait for something similar to actually be implemented in bigger solutions by others taking the risk and make big investments in products that become successful for several years and that actually set the price and the market these people ask for when they then file lawsuits. Not saying stealing it should be ok, but I am Not sure these deserve current level of patent protection or to take advantage of pricing in a market they sat back and let others make.
 
dallastigers said:
I think patents for smaller software & coding pieces of a much bigger pie are looked at less to protect product being put on market themselves and more to sit back and see if others write anything similar and use it as a part of a successful product. Some of these items just seem small pieces that file first and just wait for something similar to actually be implemented in bigger solutions by others taking the risk and make big investments in products that become successful for several years and that actually set the price and the market these people ask for when they then file lawsuits. Not saying stealing it should be ok, but I am Not sure these deserve current level of patent protection or to take advantage of pricing in a market they sat back and let others make.
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I think unknowingly you over trivialize the whole ethos of publishing papers and R&D :)

From outsiders perspective (including me) many papers are the accumulation of several years work on the mind boggling trivia of refinement on what is often the smallest of details. Each paper can be a minute incremental step based and supported by previous papers/steps.

Each forms a building block however small in the enhancement and refinement of knowledge sharing to the betterment of all

The use of IP/Patents is a tool used to protect the R&D community, who are then free to share knowledge

Theses people live on kudos and being cited in papers and increasing reputation in their chosen field.

Sure its nice when such R&D has a potential to be monetized but these are so few and far between given the number of papers etc published

Even then earnings from rights is seen as a tool to conduct further research without having to bid for grants or quotes to private sector, dish out bursaries to students etc

The whole publishing system is based on far more lofty goals than those that scribble some concept on a bit of paper and can afford to pay the fees for patents and sit back and wait or use them to block others.

This no better than those that pick popular names for business websites and hope they would be bought from them.

The world of academia spins at a Glacial pace and follows an entirely different approach to commercial businesses and they would not survive in that world
 
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BC2009 said:
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.
Click to expand...

I work at Caltech and have three patents (that will never make any money, sigh) due to inventions my colleague and I came up with. In general, patents like mine are freely licensed for education purposes; we share our knowledge so that others can learn and build on it. But, why should international corporations be able to make billions in profits off of the technology that we create? If someone is going to profit off of my patents, then I deserve to share in those profits, since without my work they are unable to create anything.

And, schools like Caltech get a lot of their research funds from their patent portfolios...the federal government isn't supporting research like it used to anymore, a lot of funding is now private money that can be scraped together. By taking those profits solely for itself, companies are making it harder to do research at the cutting edge of tech...and, no, the companies won't do it, they have to be able to profit off what they do since they are publicly traded, basic research rarely exists at companies and only if it is supporting the company (Bell Labs was quite unique in that regard).
 
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Caltech is a good polytech school, a powerhouse of a select few verticles. Pay them to support higher education already!
 
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