4 ms·

Intel Told to Pay $2.18B After Losing Texas Patent Trial

13 points by pinewurst 6y ago

em3rgent0rdr 6y ago
The patent system needs to be abolished.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Of course it's Texas. It didn't say, but it implied, it's Eastern District of Texas. em3rgent0rdr says the patent system needs to be abolished. I disagree, but the ability to choose the friendliest possible court for the patent lawsuit needs to be abolished.
- ab_testing 6y ago
  Surprisingly this time it is the western district of Texas. The case is VLSI Technology LLC v. Intel Corp., 21-57, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Waco).
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Of course it's Texas. It didn't say, but it implied, it's Eastern District of Texas. Nope Waco is not EDTX: https://www.txwd.uscourts.gov/ https://www.txwd.uscourts.gov/ > the ability to choose the friendliest possible court for the patent lawsuit needs to be abolished The Supreme Court already did that in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC (2017), requiring patent infringement cases to be heard in the district where the defendant is incorporated. This was in WDTX because that's where Intel “lives”, not because the plaintiff was venue shopping and accidentally chose the wrong Texas district.
nightowl_games 6y ago
Intel has been getting destroyed over the past few years. Should we expect a massive government subsidized Intel Fab on US Soil this year? Seems like it's a major priority for the US Military Industrial Complex, and they usually get their way. Who else is in the running for that? TSMC?
nightowl_games 6y ago
> District Court Judge Alan Albright, a former patent litigator and magistrate who was sworn in as a federal judge in 2018 and has quickly turned his courtroom into one of the most popular for patent owners to file suit. This sounds so fishy. Doesnt this stink of corruption?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > This sounds so fishy. Doesnt this stink of corruption? It stinks of being completely (well, not about his pre-bench history but the other bit) false, since the Supreme Court case restricting patent lawsuits to the district in which the defendant is incorporated was handed down before Albright was appointed to the bench, and within a district while there is some maneuvering parties can do to hope to influence which judge is assigned, it's not like a free choice, so the implication being made is mostly procedurally impossible.
- wahern 6y ago
  The patent law community is extremely insular, partly because patent law is so esoteric and only gets more esoteric as time goes on. I would imagine that especially at the district court level it's not uncommon for a judge with patent law experience to be preferentially assigned patent cases. Indeed, after some quick Googling, it seems such an approach is mandated by law in some district courts under the Patent Pilot Program: https://uclajolt.com/articles/933/ https://uclajolt.com/articles/933/
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
musicale 6y ago
Well, at least VLSI Technology used to be a company that made ASICs before they were acquired by Philips and eventually reborn as a patent troll.
musicale 6y ago
Two of the patents don't seem to meet the standard of non-obviousness (request ordering, programmable interrupt priorities) but I'm not sure about the circuit patent.
perl4ever 6y ago
"Federal law doesn’t require someone to know of a patent to be found to have infringed it, and Intel purposely didn’t look to see if it was using someone else’s inventions, he said. He accused the Santa Clara, California-based company of “willful blindness." I realize this is not how it works, but if they purposely didn't look for infringement, and infringed, that seems to me like a pretty strong argument that the patented stuff was "obvious" to "one skilled in the art".
- wahern 6y ago
  In the U.S. the phrase is "a person having ordinary skill in the art".[1] In other jurisdictions where this isn't explicit, it's usually implied that the benchmark is ordinary, average, or similar. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/103 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/103
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    So...it could be assumed that everyone at Intel is extraordinary, but I think especially right about now, one could argue they are mostly pretty ordinary?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

13 points by pinewurst 6y ago

The patent system needs to be abolished.

Of course it's Texas. It didn't say, but it implied, it's Eastern District of Texas. em3rgent0rdr says the patent system needs to be abolished. I disagree, but the ability to choose the friendliest possible court for the patent lawsuit needs to be abolished.

ab_testing 6y ago
Surprisingly this time it is the western district of Texas. The case is VLSI Technology LLC v. Intel Corp., 21-57, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Waco).
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Of course it's Texas. It didn't say, but it implied, it's Eastern District of Texas. Nope Waco is not EDTX: https://www.txwd.uscourts.gov/ https://www.txwd.uscourts.gov/ > the ability to choose the friendliest possible court for the patent lawsuit needs to be abolished The Supreme Court already did that in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC (2017), requiring patent infringement cases to be heard in the district where the defendant is incorporated. This was in WDTX because that's where Intel “lives”, not because the plaintiff was venue shopping and accidentally chose the wrong Texas district.

nightowl_games 6y ago

Intel has been getting destroyed over the past few years. Should we expect a massive government subsidized Intel Fab on US Soil this year? Seems like it's a major priority for the US Military Industrial Complex, and they usually get their way. Who else is in the running for that? TSMC?

nightowl_games 6y ago

> District Court Judge Alan Albright, a former patent litigator and magistrate who was sworn in as a federal judge in 2018 and has quickly turned his courtroom into one of the most popular for patent owners to file suit. This sounds so fishy. Doesnt this stink of corruption?

dragonwriter 6y ago
> This sounds so fishy. Doesnt this stink of corruption? It stinks of being completely (well, not about his pre-bench history but the other bit) false, since the Supreme Court case restricting patent lawsuits to the district in which the defendant is incorporated was handed down before Albright was appointed to the bench, and within a district while there is some maneuvering parties can do to hope to influence which judge is assigned, it's not like a free choice, so the implication being made is mostly procedurally impossible.
wahern 6y ago
The patent law community is extremely insular, partly because patent law is so esoteric and only gets more esoteric as time goes on. I would imagine that especially at the district court level it's not uncommon for a judge with patent law experience to be preferentially assigned patent cases. Indeed, after some quick Googling, it seems such an approach is mandated by law in some district courts under the Patent Pilot Program: https://uclajolt.com/articles/933/ https://uclajolt.com/articles/933/

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

musicale 6y ago

Well, at least VLSI Technology used to be a company that made ASICs before they were acquired by Philips and eventually reborn as a patent troll.

musicale 6y ago

Two of the patents don't seem to meet the standard of non-obviousness (request ordering, programmable interrupt priorities) but I'm not sure about the circuit patent.

perl4ever 6y ago

"Federal law doesn’t require someone to know of a patent to be found to have infringed it, and Intel purposely didn’t look to see if it was using someone else’s inventions, he said. He accused the Santa Clara, California-based company of “willful blindness." I realize this is not how it works, but if they purposely didn't look for infringement, and infringed, that seems to me like a pretty strong argument that the patented stuff was "obvious" to "one skilled in the art".

wahern 6y ago
In the U.S. the phrase is "a person having ordinary skill in the art".[1] In other jurisdictions where this isn't explicit, it's usually implied that the benchmark is ordinary, average, or similar. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/103 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/103
- perl4ever 6y ago
  So...it could be assumed that everyone at Intel is extraordinary, but I think especially right about now, one could argue they are mostly pretty ordinary?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]