Apple To Appeal Five-Year-Long Patent Battle After $439.7 Million Loss

Appel has been ordered to pay $439.7 million to the patent-holding firm VirnetX for infringing on four patented technologies that were apparently used in FaceTime and other iOS apps. According to The Verge, Apple plans to appeal the ruling -- continuing this long-running patent battle, which began back in 2012. From the report: VirnetX first filed suit against Apple in 2010, winning $368 million just two years later. It then sued again in 2012, which is the suit that's being ruled on today. Apple initially lost the suit, then filed for a mistrial. It won a new trial, lost that trial, was ordered to pay around $300 million, then lost some more and is now having that amount upped even further. That's because a judge found Apple guilty of willful infringement, bumping its payment amount from $1.20 per infringing Apple device to $1.80 per device. Those include certain iPhones, iPads, and Macs. VirnetX says the ruling is "very reasonable." Apple didn't issue a statement other than to say that it plans to appeal. While $440 million isn't a lot of money for Apple, there's principle at stake here: VirnetX is a patent troll that makes its money from licensing patents and suing other parties. The company's SEC filing states, "Our portfolio of intellectual property is the foundation of our business model."

Re:

[youngone]

Indeed VirnetX would appear to be a patent troll, and will probably be first against a wall when the revolution comes, but it's a bit hard to have sympathy for Apple.
Live by the sword is the phrase that comes to mind.

Re:

[alvinrod]

I'd go with "hate the game, not the player" as Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, and plenty of other major companies get hit with these types of suits far more often than they go after other companies or each other. When there are plenty of other companies (legit or not) that have already picked up swords and are poking you with them, there's little incentive not you arm yourself in kind.

The only thing that will fix it is patent reform, but that isn't something to stir up the base with so neither party

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

I'd go with "hate the game, not the player"

I won't. Shitty behaviour is not OK just because "everyone" else is doing it. They are adults in full control of their faculties, so they are as much at fault as the game.

And Apple's been pretty sue-happy about some pretty silly patents, so it' hard to feel much sympathy either.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

So become CEO of a tech company and don't do it. Then get sued by your shareholders.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Despite the wet dreams of the capitalistas this has basically never happened. Shareholders have occasionally won for gross negligence and borderline fraud, but never ever ever for merely not doing something unethical.

Troll harder next time.

Re:Patent troll

[msauve]

"Indeed VirnetX would appear to be a patent troll"

No, absolutely not. Patent trolls don't go after multi-national corporations. They have weak or indefensible patents, and go after low-hanging fruit, trying to avoid court at all costs - they live on out-of-court settlements where the target figures paying is cheaper than fighting.

Now, they may be a NPE (non-practicing entity), which doesn't make products which use their patents, but that's another thing entirely. Lots of universities fall in that category - they don't make products, but license patents they developed with research. Nothing unethical about it, they developed or bought reasonable, enforceable patents. Say some Joe Blow patented something unique - he doesn't have the resources to fight an infringer like Apple, so he sells the patent to someone who does. The system works like it should, assuming you think patents should exist at all.

That the patent(s) in question here have held up across several cases shows they're not a patent troll.

Re:

[youngone]

I checked with Wikipedia and got this:

Some call VirnetX a patent troll[1][2] because they expanded their Patent Portfolio beyond the original four Internet Security Patents to include more than 100 related patents, thus securing their position as a leader in mobile security technology, and based on the fact that the majority of their employees are lawyers and they have yet to commercialize any of their patents in commercial products.

So I guess it depends on your definition of Troll really.
I'm happy to call any company that produces nothing a patent troll, but in this case there might be a defense:

Emails from Apple's engineering staff indicated that they knew they were violating various patents...

Which fits your point well, and is also why I have no sympathy for Apple.

Re:

[Austerity Empowers]

As an engineer, I am not aware of very many patents, and I intentionally keep my blinders on. However every once in a while a patent comes by that looks like "I patented downloading a file, anyone who downloads files owes me royalties". Often they get to us deliberately to ensure that we are crossing in to willful violation. And yup, I do willfully violate that kind of bullshit patent. Any reasonable person would.

The lawyers have to earn their keep and deal with that. We can't have the state of all technol

Re:

[jedidiah]

The relevant aspect of the troll metaphor is trying to charge people for something you don't own. A valid patent doesn't fall into that category. It doesn't matter if you are a "practicing entity" or not. It's pursuit of the bogus patents that make you a troll.

It's abusing the "I can't believe they got that past the PTO" kind of shit that makes you a a troll.

Re:

[youngone]

The relevant aspect of the troll metaphor is trying to charge people for something you don't own...

No, I think you've misunderstood what a patent troll is.
Here's a definition. [wikipedia.org]
Ownership or not is not the point:

Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question. However, some entities which do not practice their asserted patent may not be considered "patent trolls" when they license their patented technologies on reasonable terms in advance.

Did they offer to license the tech to Apple? TFA does not say.

Re:

[msauve]

Wikipedia? Really? Try this:

What is a patent troll?

A patent troll uses patents as legal weapons, instead of actually creating any new products or coming up with new ideas. Instead, trolls are in the business of litigation (or even just threatening litigation). They often buy up patents cheaply from companies down on their luck who are looking to monetize what resources they have left, such as patents. Unfortunately, the Patent Office has a habit of issuing patents for ideas that are neither new nor revol

Re:

[david_thornley]

However, suppose we split patents into the real and the nebulous kinds. Patent trolls generally get nebulous patents and send out letters demanding payment, typically backing down if the target shows signs of fighting. Trolls are afraid of court decisions which will expose them to sunlight and turn them to stone.

This looks like a hard-fought legal battle, which means the courts have agreed that the patents are real and valid and do apply. This is at least not a typical patent troll.

It's fine to be a

Re:

[msauve]

"I'm happy to call any company that produces nothing a patent troll"

Then you'd be wrong. The term is a pejorative broadly used by those who don't have any real understanding of the patent system, so they don't understand the difference between trolls and NPEs. Would you call UCal and MIT [prnewswire.com] patent trolls?

Re:

[bongey]

The patents are BS , most are basically "DNS server over a VPN' list http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017... [ipwatchdog.com] .

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

Yeah, reading this, I know for a fact the functionality described by 135 existed prior to 98. For starters, tokenRing could probably knock out everything after claim 9 out as prior art. Just adding "secure" to it doesn't make it novel or new. The claims describe nothing that did not exist prior to Oct 98 (which is the earliest date on any of the patents in question) As for the other 3, it just boggles my mind that someone approved those. Aren't patent examiners supposed to be "experts" in the field in quest

Re:

[david_thornley]

If these are definitely BS patents, couldn't Apple have gotten the courts to look at them?

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

Also... Religious fanatic followers actually believe that Apple invented anything...

I "thank" Apple for kiling the physical keyboard

Compute...errorrrrr....

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

It's one thing to get the courts to look at them, it's another to convince a bunch of people that know nothing about astrophysics that the earth is 4B years old....

Re:

[david_thornley]

I believe expert witnesses come in less than a hundred million each, which means Apple could have gotten plenty of them.

Judges are not typically stupid, and the judicial system has developed ways to deal with issues that judges don't know about.

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

And yet we have these (and other) stupid patents that continue to pollute the pool.

Patents were already invalidated!!!

[goombah99]

From the article:

Currently all four VirnetX patents in the suit have been invalidated by the Patent and Trademark Office, or its Patent Trial and Appeal Board, or both. This, confusingly, doesn’t actually halt the pace of VirnetX’s patent case: the invalidation is not legally binding until all appeals have been exhausted (and separately that case appears to still be ongoing).

Re:

[gravewax]

They seem to sell competing products in the space that they have these patents and utilise the patents in tech, I think by definition that makes them NOT a patent troll. perhaps the patents are dodgy but that is a separate issue.

Is that you Samsung?

[sgrover]

I haven't gone to look it up, but that number sounds kinda familiar... wasn't that the amount (or close to it) Apple won from Samsung for infringing the rounded corners patent?

Re:

[alvinrod]

We already have that as judges can dismiss cases for a variety of legal reasons. However you don't want them to have too much leeway. It sounds good in theory until you have a judge letting people off because he doesn't think its in the public's interest to prosecute them.

In the particular case you mentioned (link for anyone interested [time.com]) the proper response would be to sue for legal fees, which given the story shouldn't be too difficult to win. I can understand the man not wanting to spend any more of his

www.al-awa2el.com

[Ahmed Kamel]

[al-awa2el.com]

Put away the "patent troll" moniker already

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, a Patent is a thing with value, and if you own it, you own its value. It doesn't matter how you came into owning it.

Second, if someone infringes on your patent, they have infringed on your patent. They have stolen your thing of value, and they owe you damages. Again, it matters not how you came into ownership of the patent.

So let's just drop this "patent troll" bullshit and call a spade a spade. Apple is an intellectual property thief. Several trials and multiple courts have found them so.

Re:

[ewibble]

I would argue that logic, a patent has should have no value, it is only its use that has value.

If you bought a patient and not used it the maximum financial loss you have incurred is the cost buy the patient.

Now I think patients should just be scrapped, they are just used to create artificial monopolies which just make production less efficient.

However if people insist on keeping them then the penalties should be calculated like any other legal penalty by working out what you would have made if that offende

Your logic is broken.

[thesupraman]

That simply does not work.

what would happen then is everyone would refuse to license patents, and you would get a bunch of big cooperates basically saying 'Go on little inventor, we know you cannot afford to actually bring your great new invention to market, even though it is profitable, so we will simple infringe it, make billions, and then claim you had no actual losses'

Is that the world you are hoping for?

Re:

[ewibble]

First how would you know it doesn't work, has anyone ever tried it.

Second the system as we have it doesn't work for little inventors anyway, there is no way that a little inventor can realistically fight a corporation like google anyway. I a little inventor tries to fight a large corporation the most likely outcome is they will go bankrupt paying lawyers.

So the the solution here is have a company who's only purpose is to exist buy up patients cheap underpaying inventor and producing nothing,

And yes if you c

Re:

[Xenx]

I'm not going to make a judgement on merit in this particular case, but not all patents are equal. I will agree that a company, regardless of details, that owns a strong patent should be able to monetize it. That being said, a lot of these patents are the lowest of hanging fruit and shouldn't even exist. Patent trolls do exist.

Re:Put away the "patent troll" moniker already

[GoRK]

You know I worked for a small regional computer manufacturer in the late 90's and we actually had to spar with the company who was infamously going around filing lawsuits alleging infringement because we sold computers that had blinking cursors. They had a legitimate patent for that.

The problem is that everyone wants to argue the extremes and turn this into a binary problem when it is not. There are good and legitimate patents; there are some real suck-ass crap patents, and there is everything in between. Companies like Apple generally do not infringe on patents purposefully; they both pay for and receive tons of license fees under contracts that are overwhelmingly not the result of court cases. They aren't seeking to undermine the patent system or play a bunch of high stakes poker with patents. Software patents are too easy to work around.

Spelling issue only

[itwasgreektome]

First line "Appel has been ordered to pay"...think it was a spoonerism of "Apple" and "Appeal."

Fighting a symptom

[Ecuador]

I generally applaud everyone that fights patent trolls, but Apple, one of the biggest players who could actually push and affect change in the ridiculous patent system, is really happy to get their own useless patents granted in an effort to strong-arm either small players or get necessary technology for free, so in my book they are not better than patent trolls.
Yeah, the system is broken, but we are happy with it as long as we come ahead in the long run. And we'll fight some small patent trolls, a symptom of the system, along the way just to show form...

Re:

[jedidiah]

That's the real elephant in the room. This "poor victim" is a dominant corporation that chooses to use the current status quo to their advantage. They really shouldn't get any sympathy.

Re:

[Dog-Cow]

What definition of patent troll are you using which applies to Apple?

Oh no!

[Gravis Zero]

Is someone trying to steal their rounded corners idea again?! ;)

The only troll around here

[Brockmire]

is BeauHD. No other paid person gets the very first fucking word wrong in their article. Editors? What are those?