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Jury awards Optis $300M in second patent trial against Apple

97 points by keleftheriou 5y ago

vmception 5y ago
There’s got to be a compromise between having an idea first and disclosing it, having your patent drafters make it as broad as possible such that even you barely recognize it, and the expectation to have a trillion dollars of capital to attempt making the idea viable The “trolls” or non practicing entities are just as much a piece of this system as everyone else. The patent inventor has to recoup as $15000 is a lot to them, the trolls have to recoup as their millions of dollars of patent purchases is a lot to them, and the companies that build use unfathomable amounts of capital to build at all and it is ridiculous to suggest the inventor or the NPE do that. Maybe the government should just buy patents and not leverage them. If there is no comprehensive patent regulatory change people can agree on.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  No one owes the inventors or patent companies anything for bad patents. They're meant to do a specific thing and I think we're light years away from that at this point. At least originally with mechanical patents you had the basic working form of the idea but with software patents there's nothing there.
  - vmception 5y ago
    okay, since that will never reach consensus the floggings will continue until morale improves I was explaining why people do what they do.
m3kw9 5y ago
Is this the legal equivalent of setting mines and not marking them?
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  Seems like it. I like to believe this is karma for their CSAM spyware initiatives. Please continue to fight the good fight, patent trolls.
  - joering2 5y ago
    How long can courts delay this? How many times can Apple appeal until they have to shell out hard cash?
    - jfoutz 5y ago
      The federal government sued ibm for monopoly status, ibm outspent them till it didn’t matter. I’d imagine Apple could play the same game.
  - nullc 5y ago
    It's karma for Steve Jobs threatening to put other companies out of business with spurious patent litigation unless they joined Apple and Google in their illegal wage fixing scheme.
- nightcracker 5y ago
  Keep in mind it's the big companies here that set out these mines: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8019332B2/en application filed by LG Electronics Inc https://patents.google.com/patent/US8385284B2/en application filed by Panasonic Corp https://patents.google.com/patent/US8411557B2/en application filed by Panasonic Corp https://patents.google.com/patent/US9001774B2/en application filed by Samsung Electronics Co How a patent troll ended up with them, I don't know. But you can bet the only reason none of these big corps didn't use them against Apple or other big corporations is mutually assured destruction. They would not hesitate against a small company that's perceived as threatening which doesn't have a patent arsenal to fight back.
  - josefx 5y ago
    Could it be some kind of proxy warfare? Others mentioned agreements that require companies working on a standard to license their patents, so it would make sense to move them to a "patent troll" company that isn't bound by these agreements and can go after the competition without fear for reprisal.
neolog 5y ago
How much can you sell a patent to a troll for?
- fortran77 5y ago
  I have some patents from my last (failed) startup in this space. I'm going to call Optis on Monday and find out.
  - silexia 5y ago
    You are part of the problem.
    - mpol 5y ago
      Please understand that patents only serve the big companies, not the small developer. Companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft just cross-license in case there is a problem and they gain from that. As a small developer who invented something and has patented that invention. What do you do when Apple uses that patent without informing you or paying you. Do you sue them? That will take 10 years and lots of money and will surely wear you out. The only way a small developer gets paid for a patent is by selling it to a patent troll. I guess this is how the system works. By the way, I don't agree with software patents, and I think 20 years is too long for a patent in this day and age.
      - Johnyma22 5y ago
        "The only way a small developer gets paid for a patent is by selling it to a patent troll." There is another way. You can sell the company that owns the patent to a larger company (that isn't a troll). M&A's often assign a high value to IP...
      - dejw 5y ago
        Sad, but almost all of us would do the same.
      - new299 5y ago
joering2 5y ago
> In a statement, Apple said: "Optis makes no products and its sole business is to sue companies using patents they accumulate. We will continue to defend against their attempts to extract unreasonable payments for patents they acquire." I don't understand this approach. I hate patent trolls as much as anyone else, but my feelings are irrelevant to the laws, no? Who cares what Apple lawyers feel honestly? Where does it say in patent laws that only patents you are utilizing to the max 24/7 are viable and "real patents"? Patent trolls are patent trolls but as SC said many times, if you don't like how we interpret current laws, change them and make them more precise. Besides, its not like Apple hasn't been a "patent troll" themselves - anyone remembers Apple vs Samsung re too much curved corners?
- stephenr 5y ago
  You can disagree with the merits of a patent fight all you want - but suing over a design patent for a product you ship and sell millions of units of, is the literal opposite of a patent troll.
- dandelany 5y ago
  It’s just PR. It matters to Apple whether the story is “Apple steals tech from tech startup & gets sued” vs. “patent troll frivolously sues Apple”. It’s not to convince a judge, it’s for the court of public opinion. Lawyers spinning the story in the press to make their side look better is not a new phenomenon…
- judge2020 5y ago
  The law on patents is that you have to make and sell products using those patents, either by "use in commerce", showing that it's currently in-use, or that you have a "bona fide intent to use the mark". https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/current#/current/TMEP-900d1e1.html https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/current#/current/TMEP-900d1...
  - nyanpasu64 5y ago
    This says that trademarks require you to make and sell products, not patents.
hamburgerwah 5y ago
Simple. Software is math. Math is freedom of expression. All software patents must be completely abolished.
- WillDaSilva 5y ago
  We can take this idea further, both in justification and scope: intellectual property should not exist. This video makes the case for the abolishment of IP pretty well: https://youtu.be/mnnYCJNhw7w https://youtu.be/mnnYCJNhw7w
  - new299 5y ago
    It's kind of clear that entertainment would still get made without copyright. But the videos thesis around drug discovery is much less well thought through. I'd be interested in seeing someone think these issues through more deeply. For example I know a reasonable amount about the development of next-gen DNA sequencers. How would developments like this have played out in a world without patents? It doesn't seem feasible to say that academics would be willing to prepay to fund the development of a life science tool that might help their research and appear in 10 years time or might just fail and not get developed at all. Research markets were the initial markets for these instruments. Same goes for drug discovery, perhaps they need some new analytical tool. So do they directly fund multiple high risk approaches to develop this tool? In our current scenario VCs/startups take on this risk, in exchange for a time limited monopoly. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect individual drug development companies to take on this risk. Do they ask prospective users of the drug to pay these downstream development costs? Do they take out a loan to cover the development costs?
    - runeks 5y ago
      I agree. Compromise: abolish all patents except for drugs for which expensive trials are required by law.
      - dejw 5y ago
        How about we reduce the patent validity to few years? The exceptions should benefit the public too. IF they can't meet the demand they should be forced to sell their patent for that time.
tyingq 5y ago
The specific patents the jury decided Apple was infringing: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8019332B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8019332B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8385284B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8385284B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8411557B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8411557B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9001774B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9001774B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8102833B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8102833B2/en
- trhway 5y ago
  are those patents part of the 3G/4G standards? I mean getting yourself a piece of patent portfolio of a widespread standard which everybody has to implement - that isn't plain trolling, it is extortion.
  - igorzx31 5y ago
    patents that are part of the 3G/4G standard have to be licensed on a FRAND basis (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory).
    - alphabetter 5y ago
      It is more subtle that that. Patent holders who contributed to the 3G/4G/5G standards agree to make their standards essential patents available under FRAND terms. However, this does not apply to patent holders who have not contributed to the 3G/4G/5G standards (because they are not part of any agreement about patent licensing terms for the standard).
      - rasz 5y ago
        Those sure as shit look like SEPs issued by Samsung/LG/Panasonic. Here similar case from Europe https://www.essentialpatentblog.com/2018/03/magistrate-judge-fallon-recommends-dismissing-competition-claims-sep-holder-godo-kaisha-ip-bridge-v-tcl-et-al/ https://www.essentialpatentblog.com/2018/03/magistrate-judge...
Causality1 5y ago
U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap I wonder if Gilstrap's shoulders ever hurt from singlehandedly holding up the entire world of patent trolling.
- baybal2 5y ago
  Remember, it's a jury trial. You can only blame the total technical illiteracy outside of the career professionals in the field, and the judge maybe only for allowing that circus in the courtroom.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - amelius 5y ago
    Has there been any scientific research into the possible influence of a judge on a jury?
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
      No but a judge can hold you in contempt if they believe you aren't basically being a genuine jury member. So lets say slavery was legal and you found it immoral. Youre in a court case over a slave that ran away. You want to find the assumed slave as not guilty because you're an abolitionist. A judge will hold you in contempt because you didn't follow the law that slavery was legal. That's how stupid the system is. It's intentions initially were good, but nowadays it's really just made it apparent that it was for protecting affluent aristocrats from the government. Not to promote freedom for the citizens.
      - svieira 5y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification Juries can _and may_ nullify a law with their verdict (but only for the case in question)
tomaszs 5y ago
What is the difference really. The company bought patents from an another company that maybe wanted to use them, or used them, and sold them They put work into them. Apple, one of the largest patent holders in the world, is telling it don't accept patent law. The same law they use to hold one of the largest pool of patents in the world both created internally and bought from other companies. The same company that most likely will become a patent "troll" or sell patents to one when the business will decline.
dejw 5y ago
I'm waiting for patent war on open source. Apple, Microsoft etc can kill any competing open source project using their patent pool. Has this happened already?
- snovv_crash 5y ago
  Patent enforcement typically requires shipping a product. The open source projects themselves would be fine, but downstream users of the code could be forced to license. See for example exFAT on Android.
sida 5y ago
Can apple appeal in this case to a higher court not in Texas? (As I understand, a lot parent cases are brought to one small district in Texas) And secondly can apple stop doing business in east Texas all together so that Rodney gilstrap no longer has jurisdiction?
- _n_b_ 5y ago
  > Can apple appeal in this case to a higher court not in Texas? (As I understand, a lot parent cases are brought to one small district in Texas) Yes, appeals in patent cases go to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and then to the Supreme Court. Both are based in Washington, DC. > And secondly can apple stop doing business in east Texas all together so that Rodney gilstrap no longer has jurisdiction? Venue can be complicated. See recent SCOTUS ruling here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-341_8n59.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-341_8n59.pdf
moron4hire 5y ago
> In a statement, Apple said: "Optis makes no products and its sole business is to sue companies using patents they accumulate. We will continue to defend against their attempts to extract unreasonable payments for patents they acquire." I don't know anything about Optis, but I really don't like Apple's argument here. By this reasoning, you only get to patent things if you own factories and marketing and sales operations. If that's not you, if you're just a garage inventor, then you shouldn't be granted the patent, leaving it to be gobbled up by the likes of Apple instead. Seems very convenient for them. Maybe it's really gigantic corporations who should not be allowed to own patents. When you're sitting on a gigantic mountain of cash like Apple, from what do you need protection?
- jmuguy 5y ago
  No, the quote literally says “Optis makes no products” (nor do they plan to, ever). If you’re a garage inventor you either are making something or have ambitions to. That’s the difference and Apple is 100% correct in this instance - companies like Optis are parasites and this particular district of Texas enables them, it’s their own factory town.
  - tooltalk 5y ago
    >> “Optis makes no products” Sure, that flawed argument has some appeal in simple, unitary products made for caveman in the prehistoric age. According to RPX, it's estimated there are over 250,000+ active patents with thousands of unique inventors in any given modern smartphone today; and, of those, at least 23,00+ wireless patents were declared "standard essential" in GSM/3G alone. It's pretty dumb to argue that each individual inventor's patent, or the current assignee's, is legit if and only if they are in the business of making or productizing them themselves.
  - vmception 5y ago
    > If you’re a garage inventor you either are making something or have ambitions to. Let's personalize it: Fulfilling that "standard" for my own personal patents would require me to register as a financial institution and employ people with all the licenses, some of which not one individual can hold all of simultaneously, actually run that institution, launch products, get traction on those products and then pat myself on the back because all is right with the world. All because I had a particular idea in a niche market first, which only I consider an improvement and worthwhile at the priority date, while nobody else would or did. So as someone with much more immediately lucrative and interesting ideas, I'm clearly not going to pursue that path. So.... are people proposing I just drop the idea when I had it, or what would the other incentive to share it with the world be? I should just let others independently come up with the idea an unknown number of years in the future and just say "hey look haha I had that idea a while back", or even worse, risk allowing reality to go in a completely different or less improved direction? I feel fortunate that I was even able to afford to make a record of my idea in the compliant and uninfringeable way. I know plenty of people that are too segregated from the system to even attempt that. It is insulting to think "ah fuck that person [with $20,000] because they didn't build a prototype in their modest garage!" The gatekeeping, how does that even make sense? Okay so now there is a document saying I had an idea first (speaking on behalf of all patent inventors), and even more rarely and privileged is that fact that I am not having to assign all my ideas to an employer who then owns the patent. So what is being proposed here? I'm a "non practicing entity" and all my paths to monetization are invalid because of it? Should I leave it rhetorical? Should I say "hey cool awesome tech or fintech firm, I really admire your work, you should buy my IP" because that works so well? Should I say "hey cool awesome tech or fintech firm, cease and desist now" because that works so well? Should I say "hey well capitalized company in the business of monetizing intellectual property, I'm trying to recoup costs so that I can build a workbench in my garage because people on the internet will respect me more so what kind of arrangements do you have for patents again?" thats likely whats going to happen and is the path people take So what do you and anyone passing by actually propose? Because what is suggested doesn't really make sense and hasn't really factored in what individuals do and why
sinuhe69 5y ago
I can’t understand why the US law imposes a jury of laypeople to make verdict about such a technical problem. Certainly the lawyers and attorneys will try their best to make the problem accessible for the laymen but nevertheless I believe people who don’t have at least a basic grasp of these things should judge. It might make sense in civil or criminal courts but not in technical courts.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  The original reason for it was to prevent a secret police or a basically a scheme of government officials from misinterpreting laws intentionally to imprison people. The ironic thing is though you can be held in contempt of court if you believe the law is wrong and will not want to convict someone for a law you find immoral. So it's like "whats the point" then honestly. Having a dedicated judge determine my fate is a million times better than 8 morons that are pissed they gotta be there and call in every day to see if they get summoned.
  - beeboop 5y ago
    As said elsewhere, jury nullification is a thing and jurors can't be punished for "wrong" decisions
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      Just because people say that doesn't make it true. People can be held in contempt. If you are not on a jury and tell the jury members about nullification you may be charged with a felony. In crazy places like the 9th circuit, the jury's decision may even be overturned.
      - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
        on top of that, a judge can just request a retrial.
- juring 5y ago
  I’ve served on a jury. Everything you’ve said applies to all juries. Every case has nuance that requires expertise and understanding, from how to appropriately consider witness testimony to what weight to put in various pieces of evidence. As nerds it’s easier to apply this reasoning to technical cases — because we think we understand the absolute truth of the situation — but it applies to non-technical trials too.
stubish 5y ago
Not to be confused with Optus, a major Australian telco, which I did.
vfclists 5y ago
More yelping from the company that patented round corners. There is probably more merit to this patent than Apple's patent for round corners. Poetic justice I call it. Yeah!! Bring on the downvotes, y'all Apple fanboys. Vote my karma down below zero.

97 points by keleftheriou 5y ago

There’s got to be a compromise between having an idea first and disclosing it, having your patent drafters make it as broad as possible such that even you barely recognize it, and the expectation to have a trillion dollars of capital to attempt making the idea viable The “trolls” or non practicing entities are just as much a piece of this system as everyone else. The patent inventor has to recoup as $15000 is a lot to them, the trolls have to recoup as their millions of dollars of patent purchases is a lot to them, and the companies that build use unfathomable amounts of capital to build at all and it is ridiculous to suggest the inventor or the NPE do that. Maybe the government should just buy patents and not leverage them. If there is no comprehensive patent regulatory change people can agree on.

rtkwe 5y ago
No one owes the inventors or patent companies anything for bad patents. They're meant to do a specific thing and I think we're light years away from that at this point. At least originally with mechanical patents you had the basic working form of the idea but with software patents there's nothing there.
- vmception 5y ago
  okay, since that will never reach consensus the floggings will continue until morale improves I was explaining why people do what they do.

m3kw9 5y ago

Is this the legal equivalent of setting mines and not marking them?

arthurcolle 5y ago
Seems like it. I like to believe this is karma for their CSAM spyware initiatives. Please continue to fight the good fight, patent trolls.
- joering2 5y ago
  How long can courts delay this? How many times can Apple appeal until they have to shell out hard cash?
  - jfoutz 5y ago
    The federal government sued ibm for monopoly status, ibm outspent them till it didn’t matter. I’d imagine Apple could play the same game.
- nullc 5y ago
  It's karma for Steve Jobs threatening to put other companies out of business with spurious patent litigation unless they joined Apple and Google in their illegal wage fixing scheme.
nightcracker 5y ago
Keep in mind it's the big companies here that set out these mines: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8019332B2/en application filed by LG Electronics Inc https://patents.google.com/patent/US8385284B2/en application filed by Panasonic Corp https://patents.google.com/patent/US8411557B2/en application filed by Panasonic Corp https://patents.google.com/patent/US9001774B2/en application filed by Samsung Electronics Co How a patent troll ended up with them, I don't know. But you can bet the only reason none of these big corps didn't use them against Apple or other big corporations is mutually assured destruction. They would not hesitate against a small company that's perceived as threatening which doesn't have a patent arsenal to fight back.
- josefx 5y ago
  Could it be some kind of proxy warfare? Others mentioned agreements that require companies working on a standard to license their patents, so it would make sense to move them to a "patent troll" company that isn't bound by these agreements and can go after the competition without fear for reprisal.

neolog 5y ago

How much can you sell a patent to a troll for?

fortran77 5y ago
I have some patents from my last (failed) startup in this space. I'm going to call Optis on Monday and find out.
- silexia 5y ago
  You are part of the problem.
  - mpol 5y ago
    Please understand that patents only serve the big companies, not the small developer. Companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft just cross-license in case there is a problem and they gain from that. As a small developer who invented something and has patented that invention. What do you do when Apple uses that patent without informing you or paying you. Do you sue them? That will take 10 years and lots of money and will surely wear you out. The only way a small developer gets paid for a patent is by selling it to a patent troll. I guess this is how the system works. By the way, I don't agree with software patents, and I think 20 years is too long for a patent in this day and age.
    - Johnyma22 5y ago
      "The only way a small developer gets paid for a patent is by selling it to a patent troll." There is another way. You can sell the company that owns the patent to a larger company (that isn't a troll). M&A's often assign a high value to IP...
    - dejw 5y ago
      Sad, but almost all of us would do the same.
    - new299 5y ago

joering2 5y ago

> In a statement, Apple said: "Optis makes no products and its sole business is to sue companies using patents they accumulate. We will continue to defend against their attempts to extract unreasonable payments for patents they acquire." I don't understand this approach. I hate patent trolls as much as anyone else, but my feelings are irrelevant to the laws, no? Who cares what Apple lawyers feel honestly? Where does it say in patent laws that only patents you are utilizing to the max 24/7 are viable and "real patents"? Patent trolls are patent trolls but as SC said many times, if you don't like how we interpret current laws, change them and make them more precise. Besides, its not like Apple hasn't been a "patent troll" themselves - anyone remembers Apple vs Samsung re too much curved corners?

stephenr 5y ago
You can disagree with the merits of a patent fight all you want - but suing over a design patent for a product you ship and sell millions of units of, is the literal opposite of a patent troll.
dandelany 5y ago
It’s just PR. It matters to Apple whether the story is “Apple steals tech from tech startup & gets sued” vs. “patent troll frivolously sues Apple”. It’s not to convince a judge, it’s for the court of public opinion. Lawyers spinning the story in the press to make their side look better is not a new phenomenon…
judge2020 5y ago
The law on patents is that you have to make and sell products using those patents, either by "use in commerce", showing that it's currently in-use, or that you have a "bona fide intent to use the mark". https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/current#/current/TMEP-900d1e1.html https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/current#/current/TMEP-900d1...
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  This says that trademarks require you to make and sell products, not patents.

hamburgerwah 5y ago

Simple. Software is math. Math is freedom of expression. All software patents must be completely abolished.

WillDaSilva 5y ago
We can take this idea further, both in justification and scope: intellectual property should not exist. This video makes the case for the abolishment of IP pretty well: https://youtu.be/mnnYCJNhw7w https://youtu.be/mnnYCJNhw7w
- new299 5y ago
  It's kind of clear that entertainment would still get made without copyright. But the videos thesis around drug discovery is much less well thought through. I'd be interested in seeing someone think these issues through more deeply. For example I know a reasonable amount about the development of next-gen DNA sequencers. How would developments like this have played out in a world without patents? It doesn't seem feasible to say that academics would be willing to prepay to fund the development of a life science tool that might help their research and appear in 10 years time or might just fail and not get developed at all. Research markets were the initial markets for these instruments. Same goes for drug discovery, perhaps they need some new analytical tool. So do they directly fund multiple high risk approaches to develop this tool? In our current scenario VCs/startups take on this risk, in exchange for a time limited monopoly. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect individual drug development companies to take on this risk. Do they ask prospective users of the drug to pay these downstream development costs? Do they take out a loan to cover the development costs?
  - runeks 5y ago
    I agree. Compromise: abolish all patents except for drugs for which expensive trials are required by law.
    - dejw 5y ago
      How about we reduce the patent validity to few years? The exceptions should benefit the public too. IF they can't meet the demand they should be forced to sell their patent for that time.

tyingq 5y ago

The specific patents the jury decided Apple was infringing: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8019332B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8019332B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8385284B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8385284B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8411557B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8411557B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9001774B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9001774B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8102833B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8102833B2/en

trhway 5y ago
are those patents part of the 3G/4G standards? I mean getting yourself a piece of patent portfolio of a widespread standard which everybody has to implement - that isn't plain trolling, it is extortion.
- igorzx31 5y ago
  patents that are part of the 3G/4G standard have to be licensed on a FRAND basis (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory).
  - alphabetter 5y ago
    It is more subtle that that. Patent holders who contributed to the 3G/4G/5G standards agree to make their standards essential patents available under FRAND terms. However, this does not apply to patent holders who have not contributed to the 3G/4G/5G standards (because they are not part of any agreement about patent licensing terms for the standard).
    - rasz 5y ago
      Those sure as shit look like SEPs issued by Samsung/LG/Panasonic. Here similar case from Europe https://www.essentialpatentblog.com/2018/03/magistrate-judge-fallon-recommends-dismissing-competition-claims-sep-holder-godo-kaisha-ip-bridge-v-tcl-et-al/ https://www.essentialpatentblog.com/2018/03/magistrate-judge...

Causality1 5y ago

U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap I wonder if Gilstrap's shoulders ever hurt from singlehandedly holding up the entire world of patent trolling.

baybal2 5y ago
Remember, it's a jury trial. You can only blame the total technical illiteracy outside of the career professionals in the field, and the judge maybe only for allowing that circus in the courtroom.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- amelius 5y ago
  Has there been any scientific research into the possible influence of a judge on a jury?
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    No but a judge can hold you in contempt if they believe you aren't basically being a genuine jury member. So lets say slavery was legal and you found it immoral. Youre in a court case over a slave that ran away. You want to find the assumed slave as not guilty because you're an abolitionist. A judge will hold you in contempt because you didn't follow the law that slavery was legal. That's how stupid the system is. It's intentions initially were good, but nowadays it's really just made it apparent that it was for protecting affluent aristocrats from the government. Not to promote freedom for the citizens.
    - svieira 5y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification Juries can _and may_ nullify a law with their verdict (but only for the case in question)

tomaszs 5y ago

What is the difference really. The company bought patents from an another company that maybe wanted to use them, or used them, and sold them They put work into them. Apple, one of the largest patent holders in the world, is telling it don't accept patent law. The same law they use to hold one of the largest pool of patents in the world both created internally and bought from other companies. The same company that most likely will become a patent "troll" or sell patents to one when the business will decline.

dejw 5y ago

I'm waiting for patent war on open source. Apple, Microsoft etc can kill any competing open source project using their patent pool. Has this happened already?

snovv_crash 5y ago
Patent enforcement typically requires shipping a product. The open source projects themselves would be fine, but downstream users of the code could be forced to license. See for example exFAT on Android.

sida 5y ago

Can apple appeal in this case to a higher court not in Texas? (As I understand, a lot parent cases are brought to one small district in Texas) And secondly can apple stop doing business in east Texas all together so that Rodney gilstrap no longer has jurisdiction?

_n_b_ 5y ago
> Can apple appeal in this case to a higher court not in Texas? (As I understand, a lot parent cases are brought to one small district in Texas) Yes, appeals in patent cases go to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and then to the Supreme Court. Both are based in Washington, DC. > And secondly can apple stop doing business in east Texas all together so that Rodney gilstrap no longer has jurisdiction? Venue can be complicated. See recent SCOTUS ruling here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-341_8n59.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-341_8n59.pdf

moron4hire 5y ago

> In a statement, Apple said: "Optis makes no products and its sole business is to sue companies using patents they accumulate. We will continue to defend against their attempts to extract unreasonable payments for patents they acquire." I don't know anything about Optis, but I really don't like Apple's argument here. By this reasoning, you only get to patent things if you own factories and marketing and sales operations. If that's not you, if you're just a garage inventor, then you shouldn't be granted the patent, leaving it to be gobbled up by the likes of Apple instead. Seems very convenient for them. Maybe it's really gigantic corporations who should not be allowed to own patents. When you're sitting on a gigantic mountain of cash like Apple, from what do you need protection?

jmuguy 5y ago
No, the quote literally says “Optis makes no products” (nor do they plan to, ever). If you’re a garage inventor you either are making something or have ambitions to. That’s the difference and Apple is 100% correct in this instance - companies like Optis are parasites and this particular district of Texas enables them, it’s their own factory town.
- tooltalk 5y ago
  >> “Optis makes no products” Sure, that flawed argument has some appeal in simple, unitary products made for caveman in the prehistoric age. According to RPX, it's estimated there are over 250,000+ active patents with thousands of unique inventors in any given modern smartphone today; and, of those, at least 23,00+ wireless patents were declared "standard essential" in GSM/3G alone. It's pretty dumb to argue that each individual inventor's patent, or the current assignee's, is legit if and only if they are in the business of making or productizing them themselves.
- vmception 5y ago
  > If you’re a garage inventor you either are making something or have ambitions to. Let's personalize it: Fulfilling that "standard" for my own personal patents would require me to register as a financial institution and employ people with all the licenses, some of which not one individual can hold all of simultaneously, actually run that institution, launch products, get traction on those products and then pat myself on the back because all is right with the world. All because I had a particular idea in a niche market first, which only I consider an improvement and worthwhile at the priority date, while nobody else would or did. So as someone with much more immediately lucrative and interesting ideas, I'm clearly not going to pursue that path. So.... are people proposing I just drop the idea when I had it, or what would the other incentive to share it with the world be? I should just let others independently come up with the idea an unknown number of years in the future and just say "hey look haha I had that idea a while back", or even worse, risk allowing reality to go in a completely different or less improved direction? I feel fortunate that I was even able to afford to make a record of my idea in the compliant and uninfringeable way. I know plenty of people that are too segregated from the system to even attempt that. It is insulting to think "ah fuck that person [with $20,000] because they didn't build a prototype in their modest garage!" The gatekeeping, how does that even make sense? Okay so now there is a document saying I had an idea first (speaking on behalf of all patent inventors), and even more rarely and privileged is that fact that I am not having to assign all my ideas to an employer who then owns the patent. So what is being proposed here? I'm a "non practicing entity" and all my paths to monetization are invalid because of it? Should I leave it rhetorical? Should I say "hey cool awesome tech or fintech firm, I really admire your work, you should buy my IP" because that works so well? Should I say "hey cool awesome tech or fintech firm, cease and desist now" because that works so well? Should I say "hey well capitalized company in the business of monetizing intellectual property, I'm trying to recoup costs so that I can build a workbench in my garage because people on the internet will respect me more so what kind of arrangements do you have for patents again?" thats likely whats going to happen and is the path people take So what do you and anyone passing by actually propose? Because what is suggested doesn't really make sense and hasn't really factored in what individuals do and why

sinuhe69 5y ago

I can’t understand why the US law imposes a jury of laypeople to make verdict about such a technical problem. Certainly the lawyers and attorneys will try their best to make the problem accessible for the laymen but nevertheless I believe people who don’t have at least a basic grasp of these things should judge. It might make sense in civil or criminal courts but not in technical courts.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
The original reason for it was to prevent a secret police or a basically a scheme of government officials from misinterpreting laws intentionally to imprison people. The ironic thing is though you can be held in contempt of court if you believe the law is wrong and will not want to convict someone for a law you find immoral. So it's like "whats the point" then honestly. Having a dedicated judge determine my fate is a million times better than 8 morons that are pissed they gotta be there and call in every day to see if they get summoned.
- beeboop 5y ago
  As said elsewhere, jury nullification is a thing and jurors can't be punished for "wrong" decisions
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Just because people say that doesn't make it true. People can be held in contempt. If you are not on a jury and tell the jury members about nullification you may be charged with a felony. In crazy places like the 9th circuit, the jury's decision may even be overturned.
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
      on top of that, a judge can just request a retrial.
juring 5y ago
I’ve served on a jury. Everything you’ve said applies to all juries. Every case has nuance that requires expertise and understanding, from how to appropriately consider witness testimony to what weight to put in various pieces of evidence. As nerds it’s easier to apply this reasoning to technical cases — because we think we understand the absolute truth of the situation — but it applies to non-technical trials too.

stubish 5y ago

Not to be confused with Optus, a major Australian telco, which I did.

vfclists 5y ago

More yelping from the company that patented round corners. There is probably more merit to this patent than Apple's patent for round corners. Poetic justice I call it. Yeah!! Bring on the downvotes, y'all Apple fanboys. Vote my karma down below zero.