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

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

#91

Post by kodablah »

amyjess wrote: post #75
kodablah wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, the Galleria parking and 635 area are usually what turn people off (not that Stonebriar and Willow Bend don't have their own problems these days). There are no other upscale malls in the north Dallas region beyond those three, I don't see Apple ending up in the lesser Grapevine Mills or Music City (nee Vista Ridge) malls to serve the area assuming they are within the boundary. But in general, people in the metr…

> There are no other upscale malls in the north Dallas region beyond those three Well, there's also NorthPark, but I believe that already has an Apple Store. And I wouldn't really call Stonebriar "upscale". It's basically the only non-upscale mall here that isn't dead or dying.

> Well, there's also NorthPark

Not what I'd consider the north Dallas region. I mean "upscale" in mall-relative terms which is basically just not dead or dying.

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

#92

Post by SEJeff »

dublo7 wrote: post #7
kevin_b_er wrote: post #3

It seems quite reasonable for apple to avoid the renegade court. The court is known to intentionally violate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to the benefit of patent holders.[1] You must seek permission from the renegade judge in order to file Summary Judgement. "A party may move for summary judgment" They may not move for summary judgement, because the judge denies this in this court. "The court should state on…

Agreed. My previous company has to deal with trolls like this. They somehow managed a patent on turning 2d pictures into 3d panoramas which Google and iPhone do in the phones. We used software from Germany but since it violated the patent and we were tiny, boom lawsuit. This supreme Court ruling saved the company because we got it transferred to our state and the judge laughed them away. It would be like suing a groc…

You might want to double check on "your" spell check patent :)

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

#94

Post by rudyfink »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #3

It seems quite reasonable for apple to avoid the renegade court. The court is known to intentionally violate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to the benefit of patent holders.[1] You must seek permission from the renegade judge in order to file Summary Judgement. "A party may move for summary judgment" They may not move for summary judgement, because the judge denies this in this court. "The court should state on…

-the article the OP is referring to discusses an old letter briefing requirement in the Eastern District of Texas. That requirement has not existed in patent cases in EDTX since 2016 (https://mcsmith.blogs.com/eastern_district_of_texas/2016/07/...).

-As the "mcsmith.blogs" article mentions, the letter briefing process the EDTX had used was recommended by the Federal Judicial Center as a case management strategy in patent cases.

-The suggestion that EDTX does not grant summary judgment for patent challengers is incorrect. It granted between ~10-30% of such challenges each year between 2008-2017. (source DocketNavigator - a data aggregator on patent cases).

[as an aside, part of the legal standard for summary judgment is that there is "no genuine dispute as to any material fact." This can be difficult to meet in patent cases. For example, think of all the factual questions involved in determining whether a patent is invalid (e.g., has this specific thing ever existed before or is it obvious) or infringed (e.g., does this specific thing meet the limitations of this patent)].

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

#95

Post by kodablah »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #81

This looks like some heavy spin. The only reason why those stores were there was to put a positive spin on Apple in the minds of potential jurors. Same as the Samsung ice rink. The stores don't have a purpose now that reforms have been put in place to inhibit shopping for favorable courts.

> The only reason why those stores were there was to put a positive spin on Apple in the minds of potential jurors

The article may not make it clear, but the malls where the stores are closing are hours (~2h45m or ~170 mi) away from the town (Marshall) where potential jurors reside.

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

#96

Post by btilly »

ABCLAW wrote: post #83
btilly wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge is that the issue is created in the courts, and direct lobbying of judges is a lot less acceptable than lobbying politicians. And even if you solved that, tech would find itself lobbying against big pharma, and they are a lot better at lobbying the government than tech has historically been. US rules on patents are created by a combination of laws and precedents. Of the two, precedent is in practice mor…

> And when the Supreme Court overturns them, the next case relying on Supreme Court precedent inevitably goes to the Federal Circuit, which has proven very willing to engage in sophistry to issue a new binding precedent that clearly is the opposite of what the Supreme Court meant. I get what you're trying to say, but I think your point at the end regarding the Federal Court trying to go behind the Supreme Court's bac…

Well obviously I don't agree.

First of all from https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/intelpr... you can see that a higher portion of cases escalated from the Federal Circuit get reversed than any other federal circuit.

Secondly from https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/12/empirical-scotus-the-heig... we see that over time the Supreme Court has been devoting more and more of its limited energy to overseeing the Federal Circuit.

Now my statement was the reverse, not about the Supreme Court's reaction to the Federal Court, but about the Federal Court's treatment of Supreme Court decisions. Searching for a reference on that one way or the other, the first that I found was https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... which includes this passage:

There have been no quantitative empirical studies comparing Federal Circuit disobedience of Supreme Court decisions to disobedience by other circuits,(177) or assessing whether the Federal Circuit is more likely to defy the Supreme Court in its attributed area of expertise (patent law) than in any of the other cases that make up its docket—both of which are predicted by this model. Nevertheless, qualitative evidence suggests that this is the case. Indeed, Chief Justice Roberts has remarked on the Federal Circuit’s unusual behavior, noting that it seemed an exception to the rule that lower courts generally follow Supreme Court precedent. (178) An analysis of Federal Circuit case law reveals a pattern of resistance to implementing Supreme Court decisions overruling Federal Circuit precedent—a pattern consistent with the model’s prediction of defiance to decisions by generalist superiors. (179)

You'll have to believe that if I had first come up with something saying that they are properly deferential, I would have been honest. But as it is I'm going to conclude that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court knows what he is talking about, and with the analysis of decisions that that article cites was based on something real - the Federal Circuit is in fact undermining Supreme Court decisions. And the Supreme Court's reaction has been to take on an ever increasing share of cases from that court, and to overturn over 80% of them - many in unanimous decisions.

Incidentally your user name makes me curious. Would you happen to have a professional interest in the law? My status is firmly "curious geek".

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

#97

Post by Wowfunhappy »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #79
stcredzero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Speaking as someone that's a fan of independent, local businesses and struggled with running one for 10 years: no business best described by the words "independent" and "local" can compete on all aspects of customer service with a megacorp. The resources just ain't there for it. It will have higher prices or poorer service, if one is opened at all.

What do you mean by "all aspects"?

An mom and pop shop in a small town can have better service than a megacorp by personally knowing its customer base and adapting its policies to individuals. Megacorp customer service, by comparison, always involves some level of bureaucracy.

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

#98

Post by _ea1k »

elefanten wrote: post #77
bluejekyll wrote: post #41

Here's something I don't quite understand, and where some of this feels a little hypocritical: Apple, the most valuable company in the world, could be working to reform patent law in order to make this a non-issue. Everyone talks about US politics as pay-to-play, it should be possible for Apple, Google, MS, Amazon, etc., to lobby for Software Patents, for example, to be reclassified as "math" and therefor not patenta…

1. I think your assumption of pay-to-play is too strong. It's true to some degree but it's not as simple as having the right budget. For one, there are always factions working against you. There are always multiple jurisdictions and branches to consider, with different incentives. Add currents of public opinion and how they impact electoral and business interests on top of it all... it's a complex puzzle. So even the…

For point two, I disagree, but I also suspect that this is the real reason that many of these companies aren't actively fighting for patent reform. Their definition of "right" patenting is the one that benefits them the most, and their definition of "wrong" is the one that hurts them the most (even if it would help small inventors).

See also many of Apple's patent lawsuits over the past 10 years.

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

#99

Post by _bxg1 »

stcredzero wrote: post #62
_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.

Doesn't Apple maintain control over what stores can sell their devices? I guess people can still go to cell-provider stores and Best Buy, but.

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

#100

Post by chiefalchemist »

bluejekyll wrote: post #41

Here's something I don't quite understand, and where some of this feels a little hypocritical: Apple, the most valuable company in the world, could be working to reform patent law in order to make this a non-issue. Everyone talks about US politics as pay-to-play, it should be possible for Apple, Google, MS, Amazon, etc., to lobby for Software Patents, for example, to be reclassified as "math" and therefor not patenta…

re: "What this implies to me, is that they want the existing patent system to work in their favor, i.e. to protect their monopolies against new competitors, but they don't want to deal with the downside of the patent troll abuse."

Mind if I rephrase a slight bit (for clarity)?

The existing system works in their favor. Having stores in that geographic area exposes them to unnecessary risk.

They'll keep the upside (as it stands), and mitigate the risk. That's what every biz does. While I'm not one to defend Big Inc, that hardly sounds like having their cake and eating it as well.

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