Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 145 posts

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#131

Post by joezydeco »

SixSigma wrote: post #125
joezydeco wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the major college football programs have a net worth over half a billion dollars each. The University of Texas Leghorns (men's football program) brings in over USD$130 million a year. UT has 50K students. http://www.ibj.com/blogs/4-the-score/post/45498-notre-dame-n...

That must be why tuition fees are so high and record levels of student debt is required. What an upside down system!

Nobody pays the sticker price. This podcast explains more:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/05/11/152511771/the-r...

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#132

Post by beambot »

rayiner wrote: post #127
beambot wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear that "nobody would publish" argument bandied about... but is there any evidence to back it up? These were University researchers. It's not like they're in it for the crazy-$$. In my experience, they'd publish anyway... for all the right reasons: furthering humanity, intellectual curiosity, academic prestige, etc.

University researchers like John Hennessy (current President of Stanford), who made a bunch of money founding MIPS and Atheros (both of which were valued heavily for their patent portfolios)?

The order matters. He was a professor first (did the publishing) and then founded the companies second. So there are really two questions:

(1) When he was a professor, would he have still published the work even if he couldn't patent and profit from it later? My assertion: Yes, he probably would've still published.

(2) Would he have founded MIPS (and made it successful) w/o the patents? I don't know, but that was beyond the scope of my claims. ;) Or perhaps: If he hadn't patented it, but just published... then would other companies have picked up his technology (for free) and integrated it into their products, resulting in a net win for society anyway?

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#133

Post by monochromatic »

Steko wrote: post #117
monochromatic wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It then goes on to describe what products the patent covers, when the patent was filed, what it does, what other companies have been sued infringing, what the outcomes was, what the likely outcomes is going to be in this case and the factors that are likely to have an effect. Oddly enough, they got lots of these things wrong. Here's the patent in question: http://www.google.com/patents/US5781752 1. It was filed in…

> they got lots of these things wrong > 1. It was filed in 1996, not 1998. Ok they used 'filed' when they should have used 'issued' or 'granted'. That's technically incorrect although unlikely to matter to layreader. > The patent itself doesn't say anything about power efficiency (although perhaps that was argued at trial), so I'm not sure where they got that. It's argued explicitly in the complaint. Not sure how you…

> That's technically incorrect although unlikely to matter to layreader.

Details are important. Getting them wrong makes a journalist look sloppy and incompetent.

> It's argued explicitly in the complaint.

Is it? I withdraw this point if so. At a quick skim, the patent doesn't seem to have anything to do with power efficiency, but if it's in the complaint, I can't fault BBC for mentioning it in the article.

> What information do you think need to be included in an article pointed at the casual reader?

I dunno. Maybe this is the right level of detail for the casual reader. It seems extremely, uselessly broad to me though.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#134

Post by sangnoir »

Cookingboy wrote: post #110
RIMR wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>slide to unlock is brilliant How? It's a digital slide bolt. They just digitized a simple mechanism that's been in use for hundreds of years.

Right, but using that in a human/computer interface was not possible/intuitive until capacitive touch screen was available, and even then it was a stroke of genius to "port" real life object interaction into the software realm. They didn't patent the gesture, the patented its usage in the human/software interface context.

  > even then it was a stroke of genius to "port" real life object interaction into the software realm
This is my first encounter with someone who thinks that "doing X on a computer" is a stroke of genius. If X is not patentable, "porting" it into the software realm shouldn't either.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#135

Post by rayiner »

beambot wrote: post #132
rayiner wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

University researchers like John Hennessy (current President of Stanford), who made a bunch of money founding MIPS and Atheros (both of which were valued heavily for their patent portfolios)?

The order matters. He was a professor first (did the publishing) and then founded the companies second. So there are really two questions: (1) When he was a professor, would he have still published the work even if he couldn't patent and profit from it later? My assertion: Yes, he probably would've still published. (2) Would he have founded MIPS (and made it successful) w/o the patents? I don't know, but that was bey…

Because of the 1-year publication bar, you basically have to prepare a patent application concurrently with publication. So in practice publishing and patenting are simultaneous.

You also have to consider the prospective impact of the rule. Would smart ambitious people go into the PhD/academia track if they couldn't parlay research into a business opportunity? Many wouldn't.

Of course patents aren't a necessary condition for turning research into a business. But for hard R&D type businesses, they're a pretty important criteria to getting investment.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#136

Post by wsxcde »

beambot wrote: post #118
wsxcde wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like to expand on why you think it shouldn't be patented? Architectural optimizations are often dismissed by outsiders as being "obvious", but what they don't see are all the other "obvious" ideas that don't work for various subtle reasons. I worry that if you make these techniques unpatentable, they'd become trade secrets and nobody would publish them, and we'd be worse off as a community.

I hear that "nobody would publish" argument bandied about... but is there any evidence to back it up? These were University researchers. It's not like they're in it for the crazy-$$. In my experience, they'd publish anyway... for all the right reasons: furthering humanity, intellectual curiosity, academic prestige, etc.

Anecdotally, having worked at AMD and Intel, both companies have lots of internal knowledge about what it takes to produce a high-performance x86 processor. Some of it comes out as patents, but if you outlawed that, I guarantee you none of it would be known to the public.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#137

Post by WildUtah »

sangnoir wrote: post #134
Cookingboy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but using that in a human/computer interface was not possible/intuitive until capacitive touch screen was available, and even then it was a stroke of genius to "port" real life object interaction into the software realm. They didn't patent the gesture, the patented its usage in the human/software interface context.

> even then it was a stroke of genius to "port" real life object interaction into the software realm This is my first encounter with someone who thinks that "doing X on a computer" is a stroke of genius. If X is not patentable, "porting" it into the software realm shouldn't either.

You've apparently never met anyone from the patent bar. Their entire purpose nowadays is often to justify monopolies based on nothing more than doing it on a computer. [0] The judges of the CAFC -- the patent court -- make a deliberate effort to pose as innocent fools being astonished by the most basic applications of computers. [1] That's the root of the new power of the patent system.

Of course, the current subject proves that even legitimate worthwhile research can produce absurd and abusive patents.

[0] http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-or...

[1]http://patentlyo.com/patent/2015/10/concentrated-patent-juri...

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#139

Post by simonh »

rayiner wrote: post #92
simonh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than double what Apple paid for P.A. Semi and Intrinsity put together, the fabless semiconductor design firms that are the foundation of Apple's processor engineering capabilities.

That's really more an indictment of how little PASemi and Intrinsity sold for (in a world where WhatsApp sells for $20 billion).

I take your point, but if I were to pick any of those valuations as being adrift from reality it wouldn't be those for P.A. Semi or Intrinsity.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#140

Post by rayiner »

simonh wrote: post #139
rayiner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really more an indictment of how little PASemi and Intrinsity sold for (in a world where WhatsApp sells for $20 billion).

I take your point, but if I were to pick any of those valuations as being adrift from reality it wouldn't be those for P.A. Semi or Intrinsity.

As you said: P.A. Semi and Intrinsity are "the foundation of Apple's processor engineering capabilities." That might have been their market value, but I think it's fair to say that the value to Apple was far greater (i.e. Apple got a huge purchaser's surplus in the deal).
Post reply on HN