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Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls

#61

Post by quest88 »

deeg wrote: post #44

What's the incentive for Eastern District to be so conducive to patent trolls? Is it otherwise too small to support the judges and staff?

Well, IMO, it's very easy to look good in the local community. For example, http://www.personalweb.com/ opened up shop when I was attending school there. They hired (as part-time interns) a bunch of local college students and built the bare minimum. They had small parties and showed up at a lot of community events.

They came to my uni to give a presentation to scout for interns. I asked them why they chose their location next to the court house, and they replied because of the patents they had they thought they would be at the courthouse often :).

Re: Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls

#62

Post by stcredzero »

_bxg1 wrote: post #36

I grew up in Plano; the Willow Bend location was the "main" one for my area. I think this will sting. On a map it looks like the new location is trivially close-by, but the Galleria is in "Dallas proper", as opposed to the other locations which were deep in suburbia. In other words you have to brave Dallas traffic across the urban sprawl to get to it. It's not a mall people in the suburbs go to to just hang out; it's…

I think this will sting.

Won't that create an opportunity for an independent local business? It won't be as convenient and nice as an Apple store. However, it will reduce the sting in exchange for some profit.

Re: Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls

#63

Post by donarb »

d--b wrote: post #55

I don’t understand. Most firms that get sued in Texas for patent infringement don’t have mortar and brick shops in Eastern Texas. If it was that easy to avoid infringement lawsuits in Eastern Texas, Eastern Texas would be completely deserted by tech companies, forcing the people there to change their policy.

If you look at the map in the article, you'll see that the Eastern District wraps around to include some of the northern suburbs of Dallas, suburbs that are filled with lots of malls.

Re: Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls

#64

Post by sonnyblarney »

tooltalk wrote: post #31
sonnyblarney wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most patents filed big by corps are protective in nature. It would be hard for Apple to sue people for 'round corners' - but it gives them a moat to protect themselves from trolls who patent 'round corners'. But it does cause problems, because it causes hesitancy in other companies, i.e. 'swipe to unlock' patents etc..

We are not talking about "most" sane, reasonable companies like Google, Samsung, etc. Apple is historically known for being litigatious, in addition to being the most litigated today: https://www.pcworld.com/article/262202/apple_vs_a_pl_tech_co...

Being 'most litigious' does not imply they are patent trolls.

They could be pursuing legit defence of their IP.

FYI in your example - Apple in many ways has no choice but to sue.

If a company is not perceived to be defending their trademarks - they lose them.

When 'Crackberry.com' was popular, Blackberry had to 'sue' them - but funny enough, the relationship otherwise was great. Blackberry had no intention of damaging 'Crackberry' because of course they were helpful to Blackberry! But - there was always a case 'in progress'. Blackberry had to 'appear to be defending it's IP'.

Re: Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls

#66

Post by stcredzero »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #45
tomc1985 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, imagine the riots and changes that would ensue is Amazon suddenly started blocking purchases from Eastern district residents... "well we don't want to be considered as doing business there, y'all need to fix your courts..."

For maximum effect, organize. Amazon. Google. Netflix. Apple. All boycotting and IP blocking the District. Cue cries of corporations becoming more powerful than governments.

Cue cries of corporations becoming more powerful than governments.

That is a legitimate reason for concern. US corporations have ravaged entire countries in the past. Four of the largest US tech corporations taking coordinated action to punish a part of the US judicial system is something to be concerned about. If you're concerned about corporate lobbying, you should be at least as concerned about that. Probably more.

Re: Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls

#68

Post by riffic »

untog wrote: post #67

A powerful move would be for Apple to continue renting the space, but close the store and place posters in the windows explaining exactly why they've left, and why things needs to change. Might light a fire under local politicians.

Starting a war against the judiciary doesn't seem like something the corporate lawyers are going to greenlight.

Re: Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls

#69

Post by tooltalk »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #64
tooltalk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not talking about "most" sane, reasonable companies like Google, Samsung, etc. Apple is historically known for being litigatious, in addition to being the most litigated today: https://www.pcworld.com/article/262202/apple_vs_a_pl_tech_co...

Being 'most litigious' does not imply they are patent trolls. They could be pursuing legit defence of their IP. FYI in your example - Apple in many ways has no choice but to sue. If a company is not perceived to be defending their trademarks - they lose them. When 'Crackberry.com' was popular, Blackberry had to 'sue' them - but funny enough, the relationship otherwise was great. Blackberry had no intention of damagin…

>Being 'most litigious' does not imply they are patent trolls.

sure, just responding to your claim that big, 'reasonable' companies use their IP defensively or "protective[ly]."

> They could be pursuing legit defence of their IP.

that's true for most 'reasonable' companies, but not apple.

> FYI in your example - Apple in many ways has no choice but to sue.

and your logic is akin to saying patent trolls have no choice, but sue to defend their assets. And we are not talking crackberry; we are talking about a small mom-and-pop supermarket in Poland whose domain name, a.pl, doesn't even resemble anything remotely close to Apple.

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