Jury Tells Apple To Pay $532.9 Million In Patent Suit 186
An anonymous reader writes: Smartflash LLC has won a patent lawsuit against Apple over DRM and technology relating to the storage of downloaded songs, games, and videos on iTunes. Apple must now pay $532.9 million in damages. An Apple spokesperson did not hesitate to imply Smartflash is a patent troll: "Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no U.S. presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented. We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system." The trial happened in the same court that decided Apple owed VirnetX $368 million over FaceTime-related patents back in 2012.
Patent reform will never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the big fish start feeling the pain of the current patent regime. If patent trolls get too greedy, they may undo themselves.
Re: (Score:1)
Just wait for the TPP and TTIP... you think it's bad *now*, you have no idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Just wait for the TPP and TTIP... you think it's bad *now*, you have no idea.
s'okay, I'm all stocked up for popcorn on that one.
Although, wouldn't it just save us some time if we just nuked East Texas from orbit?
Re: (Score:3)
Although, wouldn't it just save us some time if we just nuked East Texas from orbit?
Why should we limit it to East Texas?
Re: (Score:2)
Because I want to save a few warheads for parts of California (specifically Sacramento, parts of LA County...)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for that... X-(
Re: (Score:3)
Don't mess with Texas.
But I think even Texans will make an exception for ... unfortunate events ... should they occur in a limited portion of East Texas. That might clear the bar on the "he needed killin'" defense.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Patent reform will never happen (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think Apple could get its big boy pants on and fix the patent system. Problem is they used it against Samsung, they do not want if fixed. So its just the cost of doing business for them.
Um, this is WAY different than Apple v. Samsung v. Apple v. Samsung v...
That was a classic Patent Infringement suit. Both parties have employees, make and sell products, have R&D Departments, regularly file Patents on innovations (no flaming!) that they at least PERCEIVE in good conscience that they created from their own efforts, and for the express purpose (most of the time, at least) of incorporating into a REAL Product.
VERY different from a Patent Troll scenario; and it's high time our Patent Sy
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry but abusive litigation based on facile patents is abusive litigation. Doesn't matter whether it's done to or by Apple, the patents are still complete bullshit and their use for extortion is abuse and needs to be derided.
Re: (Score:2)
Not because a black squarish phone that you use fingers on the screen was something no one else could think of.
Re: (Score:2)
VERY different from a Patent Troll scenario;
This is not a Slashdot-friendly sentiment, and I'm feeling dirty for just suggesting it, but why isn't a patent troll entitled to patent enforcement? The original patent filer sold it. They got compensated. Why is it better if the original patent holder sues another company rather than they sell it to someone else, and that person/company does the suing? The original filer sold the patent and received the value of it, including the value of settlements if another company infringed.
Re: (Score:2)
And what about Samsung? They have filed retaliatory Patent suits against Apple, and they aren't a member of Rockstar.
The patent system is the cold war. Most of the time, large companies have a patent war chest potent enough to discourage patent lawsuits. No one wants mutually-assured destruction. The ones who get screwed are the smaller companies (Latin America/Eastern Europe) who don't have a war chest they can use to fend off the bigger companies. So they get pushed around a lot. The exception would be the patent trolls. Like a terrorist cell that just got their hands on a nuke, the patent troll doesn't have anything
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I think they want it fixed (Samsung makes actual products), they just lack the commitment to the American political system. Apple can afford to be the biggest donor to every Senator and Congressman. Every one, and all their opponents, for that matter. Apple just needs to decide this is important.
Re: (Score:2)
The question is, saner in what way? Patent law has a considerably different effect on the pharma industry than the electronics industry.
Re:Patent reform will never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
If patent trolls get too greedy, they may undo themselves.
Seems to me that if someone were serious about promoting patent reform, they would become a patent troll to undeniably drive the point home. I used to be upset at patent trolls, but now that I've thought about it the problem has never been the people who choose to most obviously abuse the patent system, but rather that the patent system is designed so that such abuse is possible. The real damage is caused not by the patent trolls, but by productive corporations who's random assortment of obvious patents will be used to sue any competitors into oblivion, thus discouraging anyone from even trying.
The real mark of the brokenness of our patent system is not patent trolls, but rather that most engineers are forbidden from looking at patents.
Re:Patent reform will never happen (Score:5, Interesting)
The real mark of the brokenness of our patent system is not patent trolls, but rather that most engineers are forbidden from looking at patents.
Sad but true. The patent system works so much against the original idea behind it, it needs to be taken behind the barn and shot.
On another note, I find it even more offensive that the best way to write the most patents the quickest is to sit on standardization committees. That's a well-known abuse that's completely ignored by ISO and other organizations. Because getting the big organizations onboard means a viable standard, and they won't come on-board unless they can kill off the competitors who weren't in the room.
Re:Patent reform will never happen (Score:5, Informative)
Not likely. Patent trolling has been going on for CENTURIES. It's NOT a new thing. in fact, abusing the patent system has been worse in the past than it is right now. Sure it seems like a lot, but remember, you're on a tech website and tech is where a lot of patent fights are right now in the past 30 years. But since the 19th century, there have been tons of patents and patent wars and patent trolls.
Way back when, it was sewing machines. There were so many patents filed related to sewing machines that it ended up in a stalemate as no one could actually make a sewing machine without violating someone's patent somewhere.
And yes, many patents overlapped then as well.
To counter this, a conglomerate went out and bought up many of the patents (eventually becoming Singer) so people could go to one place to buy licenses for a set of patents and make sewing machines. Probably one of the first patent pools around, and this was an era where FRAND didn't exist. So you ended up with a huge corporate entity that basically holds everything sewing machine related to which you paid license fees for.
Then there were vehicles... the internal combustion engine was highly patented and the current Otto cycle engines we use today was patented, avoided, etc. Then other aspects of the car were patented, avoided, sued over, etc.
Then there was the case of intermittent windshield wipers (invented about a half dozen times), but the modern version would be by Robert Kearns who did a fully solid-state version, and offered it to the Ford Motor Company who copied the ideas and made their own, resulting in a massive patent litigation that spanned 26 separate car manufacturers and lasted until the mid 90s through appeals and the Supreme Court.
Yes, you can imagine that in the 90s when intermittent wipers were basically almost standard, patent litigation was STILL going on about it.
Re:Patent reform will never happen (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the best examples of abuses of patent reform is part of the history of refrigeration.
Refrigeration, and air conditioning as we know it was locked down for over 25 years because the ice industry was gigantic, purchased patents or had them granted (a metal tube with stuff flowing through it that chances phase, for example), which effectively blocked the refrigerator from becoming a household appliance until after World War 1.
No punishments means the laws don't matter. (Score:2)
I'm not so sure that's true because the relevant laws are set such that the penalties are so light for the wealthy violators and virtually non-existant for the most powerful participants in the system. First, the organization with the most patents is not in a position to "feel pain" as you say; IBM's power is (as they've said long ago [progfree.org]) in cross-licensing. They said they get an order of magnitude more benefit by leveraging the power the patent scheme was built to exert (which is also part of the problem of c
Re:Patent reform will never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
centered on a group of Republican judges.
Yeah! Take the latest federal judge in good ol' Marshall TX, Judge James Rodney Gilstrap [wikipedia.org] - he was nominated by that great champion and bastion of the Republican party... err, Barack Obama. He was confirmed by the Senate in 2011, when the joint was run by that other massive bastion of conservative GOP morality, err, Sen. Harry Reid. :/
Here's an idea - how about you do some, I dunno, research, before you spout partisan politics.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, but as you well said Judge James Rodney Gilstrap serves at the Marshall division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. But TFA clearly states [bloomberg.com], the case took place at the Tyler division, which is served by District Judges Leonard Davis and Michael H. Schneider, Sr., both of whom, along with Chief Judge Ron Clark were appointed by George H. W. Bush [wikipedia.org] (not that who appointed a judge at that level has as much significance as it does for Supreme Court Justices).
Here's an idea - how ab
Re: (Score:2)
centered on a group of Republican judges.
Yeah! Take the latest federal judge in good ol' Marshall TX, Judge James Rodney Gilstrap [wikipedia.org] - he was nominated by that great champion and bastion of the Republican party... err, Barack Obama. He was confirmed by the Senate in 2011, when the joint was run by that other massive bastion of conservative GOP morality, err, Sen. Harry Reid. :/
Here's an idea - how about you do some, I dunno, research, before you spout partisan politics.
When all countries other than the USA abolish patents, as Russia has done, the question will be "Should American Companies remain hostage to patents?". A solution would be to become a non-American company, or to abolish patents that are really algorithms for copyright.
Re: (Score:3)
you brainless twatwaffle
It's unfair that this was nominated down. I love insults that are totally nonsensical, yet brilliant.
Live by the sword... (Score:5, Informative)
... die by the sword. Apple loves abusing patents and is one of the companies behind Rockstar.
Re:Live by the sword... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple files a bunch of crazy patents and design patents (such as for the curves of their phone) but at least they sell products. Trolls that simply buy up patents to sue people with are a much worse problem because they aren't contributing anything to society. They are basically rent-seekers who glom off the efforts of others.
Just the same, I agree with you 100% that Apple bought into the game, made the game expensive, and then now cannot complain about the game.
Re:Live by the sword... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't give a flying fuck whether Apple are making a product or not. They're attempting to use patents that should never have been granted to prevent other companies from making products, and that is patent trolling.
Re: (Score:2)
Trolling is the action they are taking, but by the fact that they also have a legit business they are not "A Patent Troll". They are a company that engages in patent trolling when it suits them.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't give a flying fuck whether Apple are making a product or not. They're attempting to use patents that should never have been granted to prevent other companies from making products, and that is patent trolling.
On the other hand, it was Samsung who was threatened by the EU with a 13 BILLION dollar fine if they didn't stop patent trolling.
And it was Google through their purchase of Motorola who demanded 4 BILLION dollars from Microsoft for two MP3 related patents (I think they ended up paying Microsoft, as patent trolls should do).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Let us say that if your patent suit has the sole purpose of stopping legitimate competition in spite of the fact you are using patents in a trollish manner, and are being a patent troll. If you offer no services or products then all you are is a patent troll.
The -entire- point of a patent is to stop (or otherwise receive compensation for) "legitimate competition." A patent means "I invented this, only I can use it or lease/sell it."
Re: (Score:2)
Except the courts are fucking stupid when it comes to tech and it takes years and millions of dollars to get a verdict.
They are bullshit patents and we all know it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I understand that it is different. You just have to really read what I posted. Apple has products. Therefore they can not technically be "Just a patent troll". They still though can use the patents they have in a trollish manner.
Some of us are nothing but Apple haters. Some Apple defenders. Some can recognize that Apple has products, a right to make them and is still being a douche about their shit patents.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
To be fair, two things:
1) Most of Apple's patents are on hardware, and design patents aren't uncommon at all among big corps that make and sell tangible stuff (see also the Auto industry).
2) Apple got this way because they were IP-raped pretty hard in their early years (with Microsoft being among the more notable thieves).
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of Apple's patents are on hardware
Most of Apple's hardware designs are ripped off from other places. Slide to unlock is centuries old and other phones did it first on a touch screen. Their tablets look almost exactly like Samsung photo frames released years earlier. Much of their other hardware looks like Braun products from the 70s and 80s, the kind of stuff Jobs would have lusted after when he was young.
Apple got this way because they were IP-raped pretty hard in their early years
We have all hard Steve Jobs talk about how Apple used to shamelessly stead good ideas. That's the way it should be. Apple, and Jobs in pa
Re: (Score:2)
Apple doesn't hold patents covering slide-to-unlock, but rather a certain way to do slide-to-unlock. My Nook and my Nexus 7 both slide to unlock, but in ways that don't infringe Apple patents. Apple's patent covers a way to do something, not the thing itself, and that's the sort of thing that is patentable in other contexts, no problem. I don't think it should have been awarded a patent, for several reasons, but you're seriously misinterpreting the patent system here.
I don't remember Samsung photo fra
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I remember Apple and Carl Sagan. And it had nothing to do with patents or other IP laws, but instead about implied endorsement. They used "Carl Sagan" as an internal codename for a particular model of Power Mac. [wikipedia.org] So they renamed it BHA, which stood for Butt-Head Astronomer.
Sosume [wikipedia.org] was completely unrelated to Carl Sagan, being instead about Apple Records, which was due to a settlement about a trademark issue. Part of the agreement was that they wouldn't produce "music".
Re: (Score:2)
To be clear, from TFA, the patent developer founded Smartflash as a holding company for his patents. So although Smartflash technically had "no employees..." It wasn't a troll in the clearest sense.
Re:Live by the sword... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no buying into the game or not. Either you play it with a good strategy or you get rolled over and learn to play smarter the next time if you don't want to lose. Agreeing or disagreeing with the rules won't change them, and since next to no politicians really care about patent reform or have any understanding of it at all, it would take a lot of money to lobby for a reasonable change, which assumes that anyone opposed won't spend just as much if not more to make your efforts useless.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, Google uses patents defensively. Apple uses them offensively, to attack other companies and get their products either banned or crippled.
Re: (Score:2)
No, Google uses patents defensively. Apple uses them offensively, to attack other companies and get their products either banned or crippled.
Well, absolutely. Google is good and Apple is evil. Therefore any patents that Google uses are to fight evil and therefore good, while any patents that Apple uses are evil. That's the logic, isn't it?
Now explain to me the four billion dollar lawsuit that Google lost against Microsoft. Was that defensive?
Re: (Score:2)
Which lawsuit? Link?
Re: (Score:2)
Regular patents and design patents are two different things. Don't confuse them. Design patents are more like trademarks, and trademark law and patent law are separate things.
Re: (Score:2)
You come up with an idea and patent it, I get you might not have the money. A company shouldn't be able to do that.
Why not?
Why can't I set up a company whose job is R&D, and earn income from licensing the inventions I come up with. This is surely a sensible choice for people that can't be arsed with supply chain logistics, sales and all the shit that comes with it.
What's different to that in setting up a company that doesn't do R&D, but does purchase rights to the inventions that other people create. Same business but this time we've also cut out the people and facilities management necessary for R&D.
If a pa
You are real bright (Score:2)
They don't care. And this isn't causing them pain. And they are probably happy, because it validates their patent portfolios ability to snuff out competitors.
Patent judgements don't hurt large companies. Patent judgments are accomplices to supporting large companies.
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook don't care about $500m dollars.
If you think this is live by sword, die by sword
let me check what time it is (Score:3)
time to let texas secede (Score:2, Funny)
Every patent troll suit happens in texas, a place where the school boards oppose evolution in textbooks.
Re: (Score:2)
If you step back and look at the opposing viewpoint logically, if Jesus turned water into wine and handed the wine to scienti
Re: (Score:2)
There's no evidence that the Universe is a simulation, just interesting speculation. There's plenty of evidence in favor of evolution.
The fact that you think it requires multiple interlocking mutations happening simultaneously means that you don't know how evolution is thought to work, and you're attacking a straw man.
Miracles are, by definition miraculous. They are divine violations of the laws of the Universe. If they could be explained by scientific means, they wouldn't be miracles.
The bible ha
Good to point out since VirnetX was mentioned (Score:5, Insightful)
VirnetX also sued Microsoft and Cisco on these same patents. Just the NSA arranging the board so they could run it going forward. Software shouldn't have patents IMHO...simply because of the documented abuse of the U.S. government's proxy in these matters. Supposedly the NSA has other proxy patent holding companies as well.
Re: (Score:3)
or not (Score:2)
Since no on knows who owns VitnetX, it would be surprising if you did. The Technology appears to have been developed by SAIC under govt contract and has been licesenced to Microsoft and others. Now that jury award has been nullified on appeal. So either by liscening or not, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping people from using the technology. So if that's the NSA objective here it seems to have not succeeded or perhaps there nver was an NSA agenda and it was simply about making money off invented
Ooops... (Score:4, Interesting)
Another Apple lawyer, Eric Albritton of the Albritton Law Firm in Longview, told the jury there was no reason for Apple to pay royalties on the price of a phone when the dispute is over a single feature.
“It doesn’t make a lick of sense that one person would buy an iPhone and not make calls,” he told the jury. “People do not buy cell phones for the sole purpose of using apps.”
In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.
Re: (Score:2)
In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.
Outside of kids, that's probably true.
Re:Ooops... (Score:4, Funny)
In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.
Outside of kids, that's probably true.
Inside of kids, it's too dark to use one.
Re:Ooops... (Score:5, Insightful)
In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.
Outside of kids, that's probably true.
Inside of kids, it's too dark to use one.
Nah, the screen lights up just fine.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually it's a little too moist in there, seeing as how the human body is comprised of a lot of water.
Not unless you've got a life proof case, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
I walked right into that one. Well played.
Re: (Score:2)
Inside of kids, it's too moist to use one.
FTFY. Also, It'd void your warranty and trigger the liquid contact indicators.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.
Outside of kids, that's probably true.
Inside of kids, it's too dark to use one.
Yeah, but you get to hit them until they change their tune.
Re: (Score:2)
Another Apple lawyer, Eric Albritton of the Albritton Law Firm in Longview, told the jury there was no reason for Apple to pay royalties on the price of a phone when the dispute is over a single feature.
“It doesn’t make a lick of sense that one person would buy an iPhone and not make calls,” he told the jury. “People do not buy cell phones for the sole purpose of using apps.”
In related news, iPod Touch sales are apparently nonexistent.
IPod Touch sales would have gone up when Apple dropped the iPod classic (160GB) if there was a 128GB or 256GB version and if it was priced reasonably. Instead, Apple left iPod classic users high and dry....
The 5th Gen is about 3 years old and the 6th Gen is expected by March or April of this year and supposedly will include a 128GB model.
Karma (Score:3)
Yes, this is a patent troll, but Apple's been on both ends of these cases.
Case in point: A few years back, Burst.com had them by the short hairs over video streaming patents - probably worth billions today - and Apple got off with only paying $10 million [pbs.org].
You win some, you lose some...
Companies ask for it (Score:5, Interesting)
I am an independent inventor (and Uni. scientist by day). I have tried to sell a basket of CMOS-related patents for 10 years. All I ever hear is "not invented here."
Now, the big Corps. are suddenly "discovering" what I already patented 10 years ago. I have no choice but to sue, sue, sue.
They bring this on themselves.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Were your ideas relevant 10 years ago? Or did you perceive some problems which are only becoming relevant now?
Re: (Score:2)
Were your ideas relevant 10 years ago? Or did you perceive some problems which are only becoming relevant now?
Maybe he invented a "better way to do things", which was ignored for some time because changing would have required breaking the inertia of proven technologies. Then when companies today are trying to shave 0.2s from boot times, or improve performance by 3%, they see the value in doing things differently. I could easily see that happening.
Re:Companies ask for it (Score:4, Insightful)
Better yet, if people are re-inventing your work why do you even think you should be granted ownership of it? Chances are that you contributed nothing to the state of the art. You didn't publish anything that's actually useful. Patents are rubbish as documentation. So if that's all you've contributed to the world, then you didn't contribute anything really.
The fact that ANYONE could "re-invent" your stuff means the patent should be tossed.
Patents are evil that way. They allow patent holders to claim ownership of the work of others. It's legalized theft.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You have plenty of 'choice', but sitting and waiting for someone to actually do the work and make a success out of something then springing your patents on them and trying to cash in... yeah.. you are not likely to get much sympathy for your forced hand.
In a world where ideas are a dime-a-dozen, execution ability is the real currency.
So obviously those with no execution ability should use the government to force people to pay them for ideas they could not figure out how to make money on themselves.
IP.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I am an independent inventor (and Uni. scientist by day). I have tried to sell a basket of CMOS-related patents for 10 years. All I ever hear is "not invented here."
Now, the big Corps. are suddenly "discovering" what I already patented 10 years ago. I have no choice but to sue, sue, sue.
They bring this on themselves.
This is a legit question, did you actually contribute anything when you made your patents? The 10 year lag suggests they weren't ripping off your original patent or sale proposal, though maybe they're using your academic publications the patents are based on, more likely these were simply problems they weren't interested in yet.
Not knowing anything about your patents in particular I suspect that most patents are fairly obvious once you start addressing the problem in question. But the idea that you can addr
Re:Companies ask for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Start reforming what can be patented. No software patents, and throw out the crap that is obviously not invention but intellectual property land-grabbing.
Software patents are not the problem. They are just a symptom, and to many people reading Slashdot obvious software patents look obvious, while obvious patents about building refrigerators don't look obvious to us.
The problem is that the purpose of the patent system has been lost. The reason for granting patents is that instead of an inventor keeping an invention secret to exploit it to avoid others copying it, the inventor is given a time-limited monopoly on the patent, but has to publish it. That way,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Remove software patents and there will be no motivation to invest millions/billions in innovative software that can be cloned by competitors in a year or two.
Most software isn't one bit innovative. Not in the sense that is patent worthy. Do you think anything in the operation of Facebook is worth a patent? I don't think so. Now start cloning and see where you get.
Apple makes more profit selling desktop and laptop computers than all their competitors together. Is any of that due to patents? No. There is copyright protection for their operating system and their other software, but there isn't anything special in their hardware that could be patented. So start c
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what all is involved in Facebook, and it seems likely to me that people made genuine innovations that weren't obvious somewhere in the internals. It is a large-scale operation, and people tend to find ingenious new ways when they face new problems.
Re: (Score:2)
You are right enforcement is difficult. The problem is upstream.
1) We need to have a discussion if as a society we want software patents to exist at all. We may want to consider software to be more like a book and so simply not subject to patents at all.
2) Assuming we do the rules regarding patenting math / code need to be tightened. Most people in the tech field what an innovation to have to be far greater to be worthy of a patent.
3) For this to happen the patent office doesn't do enough research. Th
Re: (Score:2)
The patents (Score:5, Informative)
The patents:
- 7,334,720 [uspto.gov]
- 7,942,317 [uspto.gov]
- 8,033,458 [uspto.gov]
- 8,061,598 [uspto.gov]
- 8,118,221 [uspto.gov]
- 8,336,772 [uspto.gov].
Re:The patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks like 7334720 is just applying DRM "over the internet," using a portable computer. How can anyone be granted such wide patents?
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like 7334720 is just applying DRM "over the internet," using a portable computer. How can anyone be granted such wide patents?
There is the remote possibility that such a patent wasn't obvious many years back when it was granted. There are now new rules, where combining existing prior art is obvious and cannot be patented, unless the effect of the combination is something unexpected.
If you think that a patent should be valid for a shorter time than normal if the general progress in knowledge has made it obvious, then I would agree.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like 7334720 is just applying DRM "over the internet," using a portable computer. How can anyone be granted such wide patents?
The same way someone is granted a patent on using rounded corners or scrolling on a mobile device.
The patent system is horribly broken and now only works for money (you pay, you get patent).
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody got a patent on rounded corners. Apple got a design patent, which is more of a trademark, on a certain design that had rounded corners as a design element. I'm not sure about any "scrolling on a mobile device" patents, but your "rounded corners" reference makes me think you're taking patents to be far more sweeping than they are.
Re: (Score:2)
The claims are what are important. Were all of them allowed? Claim 1:
Re: (Score:2)
It's in Eastexastan (Score:2)
And the subject was IP law, so we automatically know it was a junk decision.
Given Apple's own abusive patent behaviour (Score:2)
Given Apple's own abusive patent behaviour over the years, I can't help but smugly thinking "That's Karma, bitch!"
Re: (Score:2)
Not to mention Apple's violation of patents. Apple has a double standard on patent infringement (but, then, I'd suspect everybody has).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is going to be our strategy against ISIS. We will file a method patent on the use of swords to behead hostages dressed in orange, then win a huge judgement by defending it in East Texas.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple "invented".
Give me a break. Apple was worse than MS when it came to the internet, CyberDog? Comical.
Interesting language, since the name for CyberDog came from a Comic in The New Yorker.
And you have to remember when CyberDog was released, it was a pretty cool and ambitious project. In fact, if it hadn't been for Microsoft throwing their weight around [wikipedia.org] in the OpenDoc Consortium (and the fact that CyberDog was burning cash at a time when Apple couldn't afford it), CyberDog (and OpenDoc) probably would have evolved into a Web Standard.