Apple to Alter VPN On Demand Behavior in iOS 6.1 and Later Due to VirnetX Lawsuit

[Mr.damien]

Apple screwing a single software behaviour: $368 million fine
Samsung stealing Apple technologies/design and abusing their provider role: $1 billions.

Seems that Samsung didn't pay that much ....

 

[dec.]

[/COLOR](Judgement against Apple) Cue 500+ posts about the patent system being broken, needs reformed, stupid patent system, patent trolls, this shouldn't even be patentable, etc.

(Judgement for Apple) Cue 500+ posts about patent system working, "die _______ die!", intellectual property should be protected, serves them right, other companies should innovate rather than copy, etc.

(Judgement against Apple) Cue 500+ posts about how Apple is going downhill, how they ignore rules and laws and ultimately deserve it and they really just rebrand Samsung built products and never have innovated.

(Judgement for Apple) Cue 500+ posts about how Apple were lucky about the messed up patent system and that the judgement really is irrelevant as the competition is far ahead of Apple these days anyway.

 

[CallMeSizzle]

So...apple is admitting they infringe?

Apple just fought a lawsuit with this company and have still not resolved the lawsuit....if they are making changes to their operating system because of this, is that not an admission that they do indeed infringe and owe the past damages? Also, the major point of the lawsuit was in reference to FaceTime...will there not have to be some changes to that process as well?

 

[samcraig]

Apple screwing a single software behaviour: $368 million fine
Samsung stealing Apple technologies/design and abusing their provider role: $1 billions.

Seems that Samsung didn't pay that much ....

First (not a response to this poster);

Why does at least one person always respond to threads like these with "Apple should just buy the company"

Second (in response to this poster). Abusing? Yeah. Ok. Second - it's already much less than 1B and could very well be zero. Not a dime has been paid yet.

 

[JAT]

They are not really mutually exclusive, you know...
You're likely to find a nice mix of both in hot topics.

Not when you have selective blindness.

 

[sesnir]

The sheer fact that Apple's own software engineers testified that they did not spend any time determining if an software patents existed for the systems they were building is pretty telling. If one of the largest software companies in the world doesn't even bother looking to see if software patents exist when developing a new technology than bluntly what is the point in their existence? Other than to feed the insatiable need patent trolls have to plunder.

Not only is that not their job, but software engineers are not supposed to go looking at patents because it could be argued, later, that it was willful infringement. Even if they accidentally did it by "inventing" something years later without realizing that they got the idea from another patent while doing research.

It may be someone else's job to research that sort of thing, but researching every little feature sounds like an impossible task.

 

[APlotdevice]

Remind me how the patent system is supposed in encourage innovation?

 

[CallMeSizzle]

discouragement

Well, it will definitely discourage innovation if a bunch of behemoth tech companies use your technology and make you chase after them with lawyers and millions of dollars to get them to pay for using your inventions.

Remind me how the patent system is supposed in encourage innovation?

 

[bearcatrp]

Good excuse that apple did not check to see if there was a patent. Apple is just as crooked as the rest of the patent trolls. And looking at the latest patents that apple had removed for the samsung lawsuit, I doubt apple will get even half when the retrial get finished. PAY up apple, you got caught!

 

[wizard001]

Facts about Virnetx

Actually, It's messed up when a company leverages some IP that they have no plans of ever using in an actual product, to extort money from another firm, who has been slavishly copied on numerous occasions and can't get a judgement to save its life.

----------



If it was we'd never finish writing any software. The problem is that people are able to patent the most vague, and trivial things, without ever having to use them, and then us programmers just do our job and solve a problem and unknowingly infringe on someone's idiotic patent.

Facts: Virnetx has signed licenses with 4 smaller companies, as well as with Microsoft for $200M (that was a judgment VHC won).

Further facts: VHC is finishing up development of its Gabriel system, which will be part of the licensing agreements (Gabriel is an implementation of its patents).

One last fact: one Apple s/w engineer DID try to patent his work, only to find out that VHC had patented that work earlier. Therefore, the engineer felt the work was important.

Your welcome.

 

[iGrip]

Why does Apple pull this sort of abusive crap? Why not just license the tech in the first place? Clearly they notified Apple of the infringement. And clearly apple said "So sue us". Clearly Apple lost, costing both companies and the taxpayers big bucks on unnecessary litigation.

And Apple STILL refuses to license the tech? That's just pathetic.

And evil.

----------

Come again?

I don't know what this article is talking about - is it going to have an impact on me as a regular iOS user? Should I not update to iOS 6.1 to avoid having a feature taken away?

Download the support document, and look through it. The link is in the article.

Nobody can tell you whether or not it will affect you, because nobody knows your usage.

But here's a threshold question: do you use a VPN? If not*, then there is no need to ever think about how the VPN functionality has changed.


*If you did use one, you would almost certainly know it. Most people do not use a VPN.

----------

A patent troll wins a $368M judgment against Apple, forcing Apple to change its software, but Apple can't get a final verdict and judgment in the obvious copying of Apple's products by Samsung? Seriously? Our system is totally messed up.

Or maybe, perhaps, the General Counsel's office at Apple is totally messed up. From everything I've seen lately, that is a strong possibility.

----------

That it is. I'm curious as to what Apple earns on it's 130 Billion in Off Shore investments in a 6m period? I'm sure the Cash Hoard is generating a nice slush fund for for these harassment suits.

What makes you think it is a "harassment suit"? Given that the injured party won a HUGE verdict, it seems unlikely to be anything other than a totally justified suit. Do you have different information?

 

[Oletros]

Perfect example of why software patents are bad

 

[iGrip]

Who is "they"? VirnetX is a patent troll - they don't make any products, just hold patents so they can sue companies and make money. That is okay with you?

Are you certain that their main line of business is lawsuits?

I thought that most companies that deal in IP made the bulk of their money from licensing it.

Don't they do it pretty much like the record labels, who license the music to movie studios and discos and radio stations?

----------

I'm not surprised: It is not the job of a software engineer to sift through patents to determine if they are being used in the code.

I agree. It is the job of the General Counsel's office. I have a lot of trouble believing that it happens in the manner being presented in this thread. My guess is that Apple, like every big tech company, has a protocol for determining what needs to be licensed.

 

[lucas107]

Samsung

I only read this to see how many times Samsung got mentioned. less than I thought it would but more than the zero times it should have.

 

[Fruit Cake]

It sounds like its more about convenience with on demand feature. Usually when I use VPN, just set to always on and based on the ISP set in the routing table and whether or not it routes all traffic only company traffic would go thru the VPN interface and the rest via the regular Internet gateway.

 

[Nermal]

The sheer fact that Apple's own software engineers testified that they did not spend any time determining if an software patents existed for the systems they were building is pretty telling. If one of the largest software companies in the world doesn't even bother looking to see if software patents exist when developing a new technology than bluntly what is the point in their existence? Other than to feed the insatiable need patent trolls have to plunder.

if (internal) { vpn(); } else { internet(); } is not the sort of thing that "sounds" patentable. Virtually all software uses this sort of logic!

 

[iGrip]

I'm surprised that Apple is not appealing this. I'm even more surprised that the damages approach what Apple was awarded from Samsung in their lawsuit. In one case you have outright copying and infringement of several patents and trade dress and in the other you have a specific option on a specific feature used by a fraction of iOS users.

If you need a meme or a shibboleth to make this all fit together in your mind, then remember that (1) Apple makes the most gigantic profits of anybody anywhere, and so damages against them are going to be huge, due to the large profits they accrued by selling infringing devices, and (2) Samsung doesn't make hardly no money at all, given that they have to practically give away their phones for free, and they don't really sell many phones anyways, because all they quote is "shipped" numbers.

So, the bottom line is that the damages are similar because Apple is great and Samsung sucks.

 

[Radiating]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]

Image​

The Loop points to a new Apple support document disclosing that the company will be changing the behavior of the VPN On Demand feature on iOS devices running iOS 6.1 or later through a software update to be released later this month. The changes have been necessitated by a $368 million judgment against Apple late last year in a patent lawsuit brought by VirnetX.The support document outlines a number of scenarios in which this may cause difficulties for users, including when contacting servers that present different internal and external content or which resolve externally but can't be contacted.

Apple suggests that users who experience these issues turn on VPN manually as needed for the time being, a potentially significant inconvenience for users needing to make extensive use of the feature. Virtual private networking (VPN), which is most commonly used by corporate users to access company networks, allows a user to securely connect to a private network via public networks as if his or her device were directly on the private network.

Apple says that it will address the issue with other alternatives in a future software update, but has given no indication on what options will be available to users and when that update may appear.

Article Link: Apple to Alter VPN On Demand Behavior in iOS 6.1 and Later Due to VirnetX Lawsuit

Holy jesus. The patent system is utterly broken. Seriously.

A company patents a simple conditional programing statement which is incredibly obvious, which is an insane patent, and wins a judgment for $368 million while showing no damages at all whatsoever, while the company using the patent gained virtually zero competetive advantage?

Beyond incredible.

I suspect removing the feature is a ploy by lawyers to show that lacking automatic VPN switching results in precisely zero reduction in sales.

 

[SPUY767]

Facts: Virnetx has signed licenses with 4 smaller companies, as well as with Microsoft for $200M (that was a judgment VHC won).

Further facts: VHC is finishing up development of its Gabriel system, which will be part of the licensing agreements (Gabriel is an implementation of its patents).

One last fact: one Apple s/w engineer DID try to patent his work, only to find out that VHC had patented that work earlier. Therefore, the engineer felt the work was important.

Your welcome.

Oh I get it, successful extortion is self validating.

 

[mandis]

Perfect example of why software patents are bad

People need some way to protect their intellectual property. If governments allowed the "law of the jungle" to be applied to this industry, then all innovations would be blatantly copied by large corporations (Google. Samsung, Microsoft, Apple) and the little guy would be left with nothing. If anything, software patent protection should become more firm.

 

[Renzatic]

Apple screwing a single software behaviour: $368 million fine
Samsung stealing Apple technologies/design and abusing their provider role: $1 billions.

Apple is found guilty of infringing on 1 patent: $368 million fine.

Samsung is found guilty of infringing on 2 patents: $1 billion fine

Looks like Apple got paid pretty damn well.

 

[Oletros]

People need some way to protect their intellectual property.

Copyright

 

[roxxette]

Holy jesus. The patent system is utterly broken. Seriously.

A company patents a simple conditional programing statement which is incredibly obvious, which is an insane patent, and wins a judgment for $368 million while showing no damages at all whatsoever, while the company using the patent gained virtually zero competetive advantage?

Beyond incredible.

I suspect removing the feature is a ploy by lawyers to show that lacking automatic VPN switching results in precisely zero reduction in sales.

Indeed is broken Specially rectangular shapes....

 

[mandis]

Copyright

Not the same thing at all actually. Copyright laws provide little protection to software developers as software titles and/or features are almost always works in progress. It is the underlying technology of a said title/feature that you want to protect and not just the software title/feature itself.

More info here: Copyrighting Software vs. Patenting Software

 

[C DM]

Apple is found guilty of infringing on 1 patent: $368 million fine.

Samsung is found guilty of infringing on 2 patents: $1 billion fine

Looks like Apple got paid pretty damn well.

Huge differences on what those patents cover, the way those patents were infringed on, and the result of those infringements. Not to mention that the $1 billion fine has been reduced and/or is in the process of being reduced (further).