well that should keep apple from going bankrupt for another year or two.
ridiculous though that a company that basically does nothing but buy things from other companies and puts them in a shiny box should be allowed to win and lose cases like this IMHO.
annoying we have to wait for 2021 for all the obvious patents granted during the dot com bubble to expire.
My perception is that Apple could lose every one of these lawsuits and still make crazy profits, but YMMV.
Looking at this particular case, it seems extremely arrogant for Apple to offer to pay nothing for the ~100M admittedly-infringing products they've already sold.
Well if you put it that way, why the hell would Apple not try to get this injunction? Any public company in their right mind should take advantage of this sort of market advantage.
The legal/patent system that allows this is broken, that's certain. But can we really blame Apple for using it to their advantage? It's sort of genius. Evil genius, but still...
Dang it. Any big company that settles with these crooks instead of fighting deserves to be the target of every troll under every bridge in the world.
Thanks to CBS, NBC, HowStuffWorks, EFF, and TogiNet for continuing to fight against the insanity. Respect at least to Apple for fighting this at the district level (though they lost and settled before appeals). Shame to the courts that make it so hard to challenge validity of obviously fraudulent patents before a jury.
So can Apple now sue the USPTO because they successfully defended it in court costing millions of dollars and now a YEAR later the USPTO invalidates it? I hope so.
I don't know, but when you see lawsuits like this it becomes clear why companies patent everything they can. It would suck to be in a position where Apple could come after you and you have no response. You have to have a patent portfolio to fight people attacking you.
That seems incredibly unlikely, since the cost of litigation for a small company against a company like Apple is huge. It's going to distract engineers, it's going to damage the company's reputation, it's going to slow progress as they try to meticulously explain where their IP came from and it's going to cost millions in legal fees most likely if it actually gets to court. And all that's before we even consider whether they're likely win - which they're not, because Apple has much more resources at their disposal.
I don't think apple are really trying to protect their intellectual property per se. After all the patents they put on the line are frivolous, and usually easily discounted... after a lengthy case.
Instead I believe these lawsuits are their 'revenge' for what they view as an injustice or 'stolen product', they know this harms their competitors and google financially, and interestingly the bulk of the buying market aren't phased by what they're doing. As a ruthless competition tactic it seems to be effective. I'm curious to know if the net spend of paying out legal fees is advantageous in comparison to the sales generated by this tactic.
If we're lucky this stunt of theirs will be what's needed to have the patent system overhauled in the USA. Apple have had fewer successes internationally, and the USA should as a minimum follow this lead.
ridiculous though that a company that basically does nothing but buy things from other companies and puts them in a shiny box should be allowed to win and lose cases like this IMHO.
annoying we have to wait for 2021 for all the obvious patents granted during the dot com bubble to expire.
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