7 ms·
I don't understand. If "all four of VirnetX’s patents have been found invalid by the patent office" as Apple claims, why hasn't the case been dismissed?
by Cuuugi 11y ago
I don't understand. If "all four of VirnetX’s patents have been found invalid by the patent office" as Apple claims, why hasn't the case been dismissed?
- sageikosa 11y agohttp://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/jury-apple-must-pay-626-million-to-patent-troll-virnetx/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/jury-apple-must-p... "East Texas Jury"...
- bbarn 11y agoI don't get this. Is there some paid off official there? Different standards? Why is it such a great place to win patent troll suits - which seem to get overturned in higher courts? Is the idea that a win there will stop the defendant from trying to appeal?
- brianwawok 11y agohttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-go-texas-its-not-bbq https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-g... > But why do patent plaintiffs, especially trolls, see it as such a favorable forum? Partly, the district's relatively rapid litigation timetable can put pressure on defendants to settle. But other local practices in the Eastern District also favor patentees. And, in our view, they do so in a way that is inconsistent with the governing Federal Rules, and work to mask the consistent refusal by the courts in the Eastern District to end meritless cases before trial.
- MCRed 11y ago> work to mask the consistent refusal by the courts in the Eastern District to end meritless cases before trial. More trials should mean more money for lawyers in the area, judges, ancillary people like stenographers and clerks.
- wlesieutre 11y agoAnd hotels and restaurants and anything else that travelers use while in town for lawsuits. It's like a tourism business except instead of being a nice place that people want to go, you drag them there with $625M blackmail. The people on these juries know that if they stop being a haven for patent trolls, the cash cow goes away.
- st3v3r 11y agoI'm 75-90% sure federal judges are on salary, and are not paid by the case. At least I hope this is so.
- DannyBee 11y agoFederal judges are salaried and appointed for life except in cases of impeachment.
- brianwawok 11y agoBut the number of judges is based on caseload. If they changed something so caseload fell by 75%, do you think some judges might lose their job?
- schoen 11y agoNope, not in the Federal court system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge#Tenure_and_salary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge#Te... No Federal judge has ever been fired due to a reduction in the number of positions on the judge's court. (It's quite possible that a decreased caseload could result in fewer new judicial confirmations, but that affects would-be judges, not presently-serving judges.)
- Retric 11y agoSystemic corruption. The area benefits from having lot's of Patent cases.
- sesutton 11y agoI don't think it's a coincidence there is that there is a ice skating rink right in front of the courthouse in Marshall, Texas with giant Samsung logos all over it (relevant John Oliver clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA#t=7m53s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA#t=7m53s) .
- rms_returns 11y agoThen why doesn't your White House or Obama do something about it? (non-US citizen here).
- pnathan 11y agoThe Presidential aka executive branch does not have that kind of direct authority in the United States. At best, the executive can start a criminal investigation, which case must be made before the court branch; the laws that were broken were set by the legislative branch. Courts in the US are given an extremely high degree of independence, in the goal of limiting corruption.
- rms_returns 11y ago> Courts in the US are given an extremely high degree of independence, in the goal of limiting corruption. And exactly the opposite ended up happening in this case, isn't it? Corruption is a world-wide problem, but I don't know how widespread it is in developed countries. And its the same problem, people sitting at the top don't have authority to curb the ground-level corruption. Here in India at least, the government has started implementing something called Lokpal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokpal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokpal It is an agency which works at the ground-level to curb the corruption both in the private and public sectors (and also the ministry). A question arose, however, that what happens if the Lokpal people itself went corrupt? And that's why the concept of decentralization was introduced. The central Indian agency, CBI can check the corruption in Lokpal, and of course, the courts have authority over both CBI and Lokpal. Thus, decentralization is at least, the present way of stopping corruption here.
- rasz_pl 11y agoCorruption? in a place with Samsung sponsored ice skating ring in the middle of a desert? never!
- pascalmemories 11y agoYou beat me to bringing that one up ! Indeed, it's been a huge bonanza for the local residents as big corporations have rolled into town and spent millions on PR (often as close to the courthouse as they can get). Everyone in town is courted (forgive the pun) to try and see corporations in the best possible light, just in case they turn up on a jury in a case against $BIGCORP at a later date. <humor>It's the American Way.</humor>
- ssmoot 11y agoMaybe interesting trivia: East Texas is actually really green: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Marshall,+TX//@32.4867717,-98.8823919,1696368m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x8636f5dfa8038ca7:0x58332058355464a1!2m2!1d-94.3674184!2d32.5448714!1m0!3e0 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Marshall,+TX//@32.4867717,-9... Great place for camping (45 minutes north-west near Gilmer, TX has an awesome OHV aka off-roading park). It's also got fairly mild weather (though doesn't freeze as often as I would've expected): http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/gilmer/texas/united-states/ustx0517 http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/gilmer/texas/united-sta... Anyways, no pro-Marshall or anything. The idea of East Texas being a poor-ish "backwater" isn't far off the mark. But if you like nature and goofin' off, it's a real nice place to do it.
- jahewson 11y agoIt's the judges and the court - somehow a mindset has developed there which is at odds with most other patent cases in the US. This is a part of the country which has very little, so big corporations fighting patent cases bring a lot of money into the area and prestige to a court which otherwise would be in a backwater. It's a federal court, so the same laws apply as anywhere else, but there's enough wiggle room in the way those laws are written to allow this kind of "bad faith" interpretation. The solution is for congress to tighten up the laws, but that won't happen anytime soon. The idea isn't just that a win there will discourage an appeal, but that the court will hear cases that most other courts would dismiss out of hand based on obvious prior art, vague claims, or USPTO investigation results. So the defendant is tied up in a court case, which includes an expensive jury trial. Worse still, the jury is so biased that they're all but guaranteed to loose the case. Most savvy defendents would choose to settle in that situation - which is all the patent-holder actually wants.
- pc86 11y agoWow. > somehow a mindset has developed there which is at odds with most other patent cases in the US. Different courts form slightly different interpretations. There's a reason that the 2nd Circuit is the most liberal court. This court happens to be the most pro-plaintiff patent court you can find. It's not surprising the plaintiffs file there. > This is a part of the country which has very little Have you ever been there? > so big corporations fighting patent cases bring a lot of money into the area and prestige to a court which otherwise would be in a backwater. Do you think Apple fighting a court case floods money down the street like a river? > the jury is so biased Make whatever claims you want about the court, but if as you claim this area is a backwater with nothing going for it, how exactly is the local populace educated enough about the finer points of patent litigation to be biased? This is a stupid decision but the mental gymnastics you're going through to try to make it fault of the area is impressive.
- freehunter 11y ago>Do you think Apple fighting a court case floods money down the street like a river? Yes. Lawyers have to eat, and they get paid enough to eat well. They need a place to stay, and they get paid enough to stay at a nice hotel. They need coffee, they need an airport, they need a rental car that needs gas. Your argument is that having people come to your city doesn't add to the local economy, but the fact that whole cities are built on tourism proves otherwise.
- gobakhan 11y agoNPR: This American Life did an excellent episode about patent trolls where they cover east Texas and what it is about it that makes it so lucrative to file the suit there. Here is the episode transcript: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/transcript http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/t... The audio of the show can be listened to there as well. Apologies on not giving a summary. I normally would, but it has been a while since I listened to it and I don't want to misrepresent it.
- Oletros 11y agoI have not found any information about those invalidations.
- DannyBee 11y agoHere's a real answer (unlike the other "corruption" and "blah blah blah" answers): First, note that the federal circuit has ruled on these patents before, and upheld them. http://patentlyo.com/media/2014/09/Virnetx-v-Cisco.pdf http://patentlyo.com/media/2014/09/Virnetx-v-Cisco.pdf Apple conveniently leaves this part out. (i think it's a BS ruling, but it is a final appeals court ruling on the validity of the patents). As for the PTO finding them invalid: If you look at the file wrappers of these patents, you will see what apple means is "someone has requested review of these patents by the PTO, and they have initially been found invalid". (Apple's request to review validity was in fact, denied) Go to http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair Enter the patent numbers Click "image file wrapper". So they haven't "been found invalid", instead, they are going to trial before the PTAB to see whether they are invalid. Note: On a number of these patents, Apple's review requests have been denied a number of times before someone else's review request was granted
- piyush_soni 11y agoSo as usual, Apple is lying/misleading people here. At least 'technically'.
- calt 11y ago> So as usual, Apple is lying/misleading people here. At least 'technically'. No. Apple are arguing that the patents are invalid. They aren't sayin they have been found invalid already. The TechCrunch article said "All four of VirnetX’s patents have been found invalid by the patent office"
- piyush_soni 11y ago>> They aren't sayin they have been found invalid already .. They are saying exactly that, at least according to their press statement.
- pc86 11y agoIt's legal posturing.
- bobwaycott 11y agoExactly what I was going to ask.