Class Action Lawsuit Against Apple Over Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerabilities Dismissed

[MacRumors]

Back in January 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed against Apple for the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that affected a wide range of processors from Intel and ARM, including those used in Apple's Macs and iOS devices.

Meltdown and Spectre were hardware-based vulnerabilities designed to take advantage of the speculative execution mechanism of a CPU, allowing hackers to gain access to sensitive information.

Apple quickly mitigated Spectre and Meltdown with software patches, but a class action complaint was filed against Apple alleging that Apple knew about the design defects in June 2017 and did not more promptly inform the public.

The complaint also suggested that Apple would not be able to adequately patch Meltdown and Spectre without slowing the performance of its processors by between five and 30 percent, a claim that turned out to be untrue.

As pointed out by AppleInsider, the class action lawsuit against Apple was today dismissed for "lack of standing and failure to state a claim."

According to the ruling, the plaintiffs in the case were not able to allege injury because none of their devices were accessed via Spectre or Meltdown and no degradation in performance was personally experienced by the plaintiffs.

Furthermore, the court said that even if some devices were affected by Meltdown and Spectre as evidenced in some of the benchmarks submitted by the plaintiffs, it does not suggest that all users experienced slower performance, nor were the plaintiffs able to prove that their iOS devices diminished in value.

Given these reasons, Apple's motion to dismiss was granted, though the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are able to provide an amended complaint by January 24, 2019.

Article Link: Class Action Lawsuit Against Apple Over Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerabilities Dismissed

 

[SecuritySteve]

Good. It's not Apple's fault they adhered to industry standards regarding vulnerability disclosure. These vulnerabilities were overhyped and still are perceived as far worse than they actually are.

 

[m4mario]

When there is no basis for the case and the plaintiffs are merely trying to take advantage of the legal system to make money, the plantiffs, or at least the lawyers must face a fine. Repetition should face jail time. we can't let people waste the courts time like this.

 

[Mike MA]

Just go to work and earn your money instead of doing ridiculous class action lawsuits.

 

[Doctor Q]

Let's sue Apple for announcing new products, which causes those of us who bought their previous products to no longer have the latest models, and to lack any new features they've added. This causes untold pain and suffering, not to mention damage to our reputations among peers. We deserve to be compensated!

 

[Starship67]

Let's sue Apple for announcing new products, which causes those of us who bought their previous products to no longer have the latest models, and to lack any new features they've added. This causes untold pain and suffering, not to mention damage to our reputations among peers. We deserve to be compensated!

I know your joking. The way some of the members on this forum act they believe that. lol

 

[Solomani]

The lawyers and plaintiffs that started this stupid lawsuit should be sued/fined …. for wasting resources of the courts.

 

[oneMadRssn]

When there is no basis for the case and the plaintiffs are merely trying to take advantage of the legal system to make money, the plantiffs, or at least the lawyers must face a fine. Repetition should face jail time. we can't let people waste the courts time like this.

The lawyers and plaintiffs that started this stupid lawsuit should be sued/fined …. for wasting resources of the courts.

What are you guys talking about? No resources or time were wasted.

This case was filed about a year ago, during which time it sat with pretty much no meaningful action other than being consolidated with other cases. Then Apple filed a motion to dismiss, plaintiffs responded, an oral hearing was held that lasted 1 hour and 14 minutes, and the Judge issued an 9-page mostly-boilerplate older dismissing the case.

All in, this case probably used 1.5 hours of Judge time and 3 hours of clerk time. It was efficiently handled. This is an example showing that the system works. (of course there are examples of where it doesn't, but this isn't it at all, not even close).

If Apple wants, they can be the ones to further burden the courts time by seeking costs, but I doubt they will. I bet Apple's legal fees for this one motion were ~$10k, only because they probably hired a big expensive firm that threw a few associates at problem. The same outcome could have been achieved from a small firm for under $5k. It's not worth their time to seek costs.

 

[freiheit]

When there is no basis for the case and the plaintiffs are merely trying to take advantage of the legal system to make money, the plantiffs, or at least the lawyers must face a fine. Repetition should face jail time. we can't let people waste the courts time like this.

Hear hear! Lawyers who file frivolous lawsuits should themselves be punished. It would greatly cut down on future frivolous lawsuits.
[doublepost=1546651778][/doublepost]

Let's sue Apple for announcing new products, which causes those of us who bought their previous products to no longer have the latest models, and to lack any new features they've added. This causes untold pain and suffering, not to mention damage to our reputations among peers. We deserve to be compensated!

Don't laugh, I am sure that lawsuit will happen.

 

[mwd25]

What are you guys talking about? No resources or time were wasted.

This case was filed about a year ago, during which time it sat with pretty much no meaningful action other than being consolidated with other cases. Then Apple filed a motion to dismiss, plaintiffs responded, an oral hearing was held that lasted 1 hour and 14 minutes, and the Judge issued an 9-page mostly-boilerplate older dismissing the case.

All in, this case probably used 1.5 hours of Judge time and 3 hours of clerk time. It was efficiently handled. This is an example showing that the system works. (of course there are examples of where it doesn't, but this isn't it at all, not even close).

If Apple wants, they can be the ones to further burden the courts time by seeking costs, but I doubt they will. I bet Apple's legal fees for this one motion were ~$10k, only because they probably hired a big expensive firm that threw a few associates at problem. The same outcome could have been achieved from a small firm for under $5k. It's not worth their time to seek costs.

Exactly!!!! So many times cases like these.......accident victim sues Apple because someone was texting and crashed into him being one example......wind their way through the courts until finally a OBVIOUS verdict is reached, Apple found not guilty and after everyone's time is wasted on b.s. its over. This case im happy to see was not one of those. Was it a frivolous colossal waste of time????? Yup. But after reading the article my first thought was, FINALLY!!!! This is exactly what should happen with these cases. Go ahead, file your crap, it comes up before a judge and immediately gets tossed for the crap it is. Too often these things are not tossed. Happy to see in this instance it was.[/QUOTE]

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

Let's sue Apple for announcing new products, which causes those of us who bought their previous products to no longer have the latest models, and to lack any new features they've added. This causes untold pain and suffering, not to mention damage to our reputations among peers. We deserve to be compensated!

Actually that should be done.. additionally they slow your existing device and also steal memory because of additional code and pictures. They break apps intentionally and make your existing device less worth!
Well I don’t get the world anymore, something went wrong the last decade - people accept everything apple fools them every year and seldom someone complains.

 

[Kabeyun]

Just go to work and earn your money instead of doing ridiculous class action lawsuits.

That is how these scumbag lawyers go to work and earn their money.
[doublepost=1546700582][/doublepost]

What are you guys talking about? No resources or time were wasted.

This case was filed about a year ago, during which time it sat with pretty much no meaningful action other than being consolidated with other cases. Then Apple filed a motion to dismiss, plaintiffs responded, an oral hearing was held that lasted 1 hour and 14 minutes, and the Judge issued an 9-page mostly-boilerplate older dismissing the case.

All in, this case probably used 1.5 hours of Judge time and 3 hours of clerk time. It was efficiently handled. This is an example showing that the system works. (of course there are examples of where it doesn't, but this isn't it at all, not even close).

If Apple wants, they can be the ones to further burden the courts time by seeking costs, but I doubt they will. I bet Apple's legal fees for this one motion were ~$10k, only because they probably hired a big expensive firm that threw a few associates at problem. The same outcome could have been achieved from a small firm for under $5k. It's not worth their time to seek costs.

This lawsuit may not have used massive legal resources, but then the gum wrapper thrown on the sidewalk isn’t by itself a pollution problem, or a quart of fertilizer in the ocean, or a single diesel engine in the atmosphere. Cumulatively they’re all burdensome garbage.

 

[justincalif]

I want to take this one nuclear step further... Any lawyer or law firm that initiates a case or class action such as this (that is ultimately dismissed without significant consideration) should be investigated and ultimately have their ability to perform as lawyers seriously limited or perhaps even expel (a lawyer) from the Bar, so that they no longer have the right to practice law.

 

[I7guy]

Maybe some of the other nonsensical suits against apple will be dismissed as well.

 

[az431]

Well this is just shocking. I thought for sure they had a slam dunk case.

 

[charlituna]

The lawyers and plaintiffs that started this stupid lawsuit should be sued/fined …. for wasting resources of the courts.

Probably wasn’t a lot of time wasted on this. generally speaking these sorts of things get dismissed in a single day of actual court time.

However I would not object to the idea that these lawyers end up on a list that tracks how many times they file these sorts of cases and if they have a large number of them they get a closer look at their games

 

[pika2000]

And I wonder how many Android OEMs actually bother to patch their slew of handsets.

 

[cube]

Hi again:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/348...s-fix-that-disables-cpu-voltage-settings.html

 

[I7guy]

Cat and mouse continues.