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Apple faces $600m damages claim
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Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#12It's unbelievable that a company that doesn't even have a website can win a suit like this. For Apple to have caused "Mirror Worlds" any harm, they would have to be competing with each other. For Mirror Worlds to compete with ANYBODY , a good start would be appearing to be a real business in any way shape or form. Maybe I don't really understand patent law, but David Gelernter just sounds like a total scumbag here. I…
I don't think you understand the difference between a patent troll and an IP company. The company I work for designs antennae for cell phones, wifi, GPS receivers etc. We barely have a website, just a couple of PhDs and a lawyer. We rely on licencing our designs and file a lot of patents. It's judgements like this that stop cell phone makers deciding that it's cheaper to just copy our inventions than pay us a licence…
Hold on, so what is the difference between your company and a patent troll?
Not that I'm accusing you guys, I'm just not sure how I can readily draw the line between the two.
Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#13I cannot fathom putting the decision of a patent dispute in the hands of my "peers" -- 12 people that are chosen, likely with the prerequisite of not knowing much at all about technology, whose opinions on the matter are going to be molded by how well somebody pitches their argument, and not the contents thereof.
Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you understand the difference between a patent troll and an IP company. The company I work for designs antennae for cell phones, wifi, GPS receivers etc. We barely have a website, just a couple of PhDs and a lawyer. We rely on licencing our designs and file a lot of patents. It's judgements like this that stop cell phone makers deciding that it's cheaper to just copy our inventions than pay us a licence…
Hold on, so what is the difference between your company and a patent troll? Not that I'm accusing you guys, I'm just not sure how I can readily draw the line between the two.
Simple -
Patent trolls file suits against cool hip trendy geek friendly companies like Apple and Google.
IP companies protect their investment when it's stolen by big evil companies like Microsoft or Sony.
Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#15It's unbelievable that a company that doesn't even have a website can win a suit like this. For Apple to have caused "Mirror Worlds" any harm, they would have to be competing with each other. For Mirror Worlds to compete with ANYBODY , a good start would be appearing to be a real business in any way shape or form. Maybe I don't really understand patent law, but David Gelernter just sounds like a total scumbag here. I…
I don't think you understand the difference between a patent troll and an IP company. The company I work for designs antennae for cell phones, wifi, GPS receivers etc. We barely have a website, just a couple of PhDs and a lawyer. We rely on licencing our designs and file a lot of patents. It's judgements like this that stop cell phone makers deciding that it's cheaper to just copy our inventions than pay us a licence…
Do you guys really produce designs that are used by companies, or do you just hope to be ahead of their designs so that you can force them into licensing the designs they would have come up with otherwise by threat of lawsuits?
Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you understand the difference between a patent troll and an IP company. The company I work for designs antennae for cell phones, wifi, GPS receivers etc. We barely have a website, just a couple of PhDs and a lawyer. We rely on licencing our designs and file a lot of patents. It's judgements like this that stop cell phone makers deciding that it's cheaper to just copy our inventions than pay us a licence…
Hold on, so what is the difference between your company and a patent troll? Not that I'm accusing you guys, I'm just not sure how I can readily draw the line between the two.
Perhaps they actually invent and design useful things and then license them.
Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#17I'll never understand how these damages are calculated. Does anyone actually believe that the patent owners would have made > $600m had Apple never written the supposedly infringing software?
In general, here's how patent damages work (in the U.S.):
1. If the patent owner can establish that it would have made the sales that the infringer did, then the patent owner is entitled to the profits it would have made from those sales. (That's often hard for a patent owner to prove, especially if it is a "non-practicing entity.") Not surprisingly, this is referred to as lost-profits damages.
2. Otherwise, the patent owner is entitled to a "reasonable" royalty on the sales the infringer made that are covered by one or more valid patent claims. The royalty is supposed to be determined by assessing -- in hindsight -- what a reasonable licensor and reasonable licensee would have agreed to before the infringement began. (There are variations on, and complications in, the analysis that I won't go into here.)
3. Usually what happens at trial is that each side puts an expert witness on the stand to walk the jury through his or her analysis of what a reasonable royalty would have been. Opposing experts' analyses can vary wildly.
4. All of these determinations are made by a preponderance of the evidence. That is, jurors are instructed by the judge that they are to determine whether the patent owner has submitted evidence sufficient to make the patent owner's damages claim "more likely than not." [EDIT: As a practical matter, jurors often can be influenced by which expert witness they found more believable and/or likable, and by their perception of who is the good guy and who the bad guy.]
5. See http://www.virginiaiplaw.com/2010/03/articles/patent-litigat... for a summary of some recent contentious issues in the patent-damages area.
6. If the jury finds that patent owner has proved, by clear and convincing evidence (not just a preponderance of the evidence), that the infringement was "willful," then the judge (not the jury) has the authority:
a) to increase the damage award up to treble damages; and/or
b) to find that the case was "exceptional" and award the patent owner its reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses of litigation.
7. As a practical matter, any prospective juror who knows anything about the subject matter is likely to be excluded. [EDIT: That's because patent-owner lawyers don't want jurors to have pre-conceived notions about what is or isn't patentable in that field.]
FOOTNOTE: It's not well-known that lawyers don't pick a jury, they unpick it. Usually, prospective jurors are randomly assigned sequential numbers from 1 to N. Jurors can be excluded "for cause" (e.g., because they know one of the parties, etc.), or by the lawyers' using their limited number of peremptory strikes. The first 12 people remaining (or six people in some cases) become the jury.
8. EDIT: The discussion above presupposes (i) that the patent owner has proved that at least one claim in the patent has been infringed, and (ii) that the accused infringer has not proved, by clear and convincing evidence, that all infringed claims are invalid.
Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#18It added that the patents had been sold and any damages awarded should reflect that market value. The patent package is believed to have been sold for $5m. If the patent package was recently sold, doesn't that do a pretty good job of establishing the value of the patents, and thus, the appropriate judgment against Apple?
No it represents what a market maker thought the value of the patent was multiplied by the chance of collecting on it.
What would the idea of the iPod have been worth in the 90s? The then value of Apple's consumer electronics sales (ie 0) or the current and future value of Apple?
Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hold on, so what is the difference between your company and a patent troll? Not that I'm accusing you guys, I'm just not sure how I can readily draw the line between the two.
Simple - Patent trolls file suits against cool hip trendy geek friendly companies like Apple and Google. IP companies protect their investment when it's stolen by big evil companies like Microsoft or Sony.
It's only an investment if you plan to use it later for some other purpose than suing people that turn an idea into reality and actually contribute realisation of that idea to society. As it stands society will never benefit from most inventions unless a "big evil company" "steals" the idea (through their own research presumably) and turns it into reality.
Re: Apple faces $600m damages claim
#20It's unbelievable that a company that doesn't even have a website can win a suit like this. For Apple to have caused "Mirror Worlds" any harm, they would have to be competing with each other. For Mirror Worlds to compete with ANYBODY , a good start would be appearing to be a real business in any way shape or form. Maybe I don't really understand patent law, but David Gelernter just sounds like a total scumbag here. I…
I don't think you understand the difference between a patent troll and an IP company. The company I work for designs antennae for cell phones, wifi, GPS receivers etc. We barely have a website, just a couple of PhDs and a lawyer. We rely on licencing our designs and file a lot of patents. It's judgements like this that stop cell phone makers deciding that it's cheaper to just copy our inventions than pay us a licence…
I don't even think you should receive a patent unless you intend to commercialize it. In this system, you have incentives to make your patent as broad as possible, as well as look for "me-too" patents that you can get by studying existing ones.
If your sole source of revenue is licensing the patents that you've created, you're a patent troll. The initial patent wasn't intended for this.
The patent wasn't originally intended for this. It was there to protect small inventors as they brought their ideas commercial. When Edison brought is light bulb to the market, only he could create light bulbs. This helped protect him from larger, more established firms, from copying his design so he could get his business bearings.
What you are doing is not that. You research some idea, patent it, then pocket it away until it's handy for you. If you make no attempt to show your patents, seek funding, or otherwise try to commercialize the idea, then you're a patent troll.