[HN Gopher] Apple fails to overturn VirnetX patent verdict, coul...
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Apple fails to overturn VirnetX patent verdict, could owe over
$1.1B
Author : clairity
Score : 49 points
Date : 2021-01-15 21:48 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| [deleted]
| akersten wrote:
| Of course it's the Eastern District of Texas.
|
| The intention of the patent system was to promote the useful
| proliferation of the sciences and arts. Billion-dollar verdicts
| to companies that do not even produce a marketable product are
| the antithesis of that intention. It is not clear to me how to
| solve this problem aside from tearing down the patent system and
| never rebuilding it. Gone are the days when an inventor in their
| garage is prevented from the exploitation of a large company by
| virtue of a patent they filed for their invention. Now, holding
| companies exist to absorb patents that describe the most abstract
| and nebulous ideas in order to leech the maximal value from real
| companies, and courts like this enable them.
|
| End the patent system. (I'd be happy if we even just got rid of
| software patents on the existing basis that math cannot be
| patented, but while I'm on my soapbox, might as well go all the
| way.)
| joshspankit wrote:
| Apple had to set up Facetime proxy servers because a company
| had a patent on what was essentially "direct communication
| between two devices on the internet".
|
| Amazon's patent on "one-click" buying.
|
| Just utter nonsense that any company would be allowed to hold
| such a patent.
|
| _Apologies: I'm mobile rn and would otherwise research the
| actual details, but it really gets me riled up and I had to
| comment without citations._
| loceng wrote:
| I've liked the idea of an exponential cost to holding a patent
| - as in, the cost to maintain it doubles every year. If you're
| producing a product that's highly successful, profitable, then
| you'll be able to afford to keep the patent for more years. If
| you're a patent troll not producing anything, it's going to get
| expensive quick.
| joshspankit wrote:
| From what we've seen from the Panama papers and huge mergers,
| I feel like this approach would actually be more harmful as
| those with _really_ deep pockets would then have a stronger
| incentive to extort people "violating" the patents.
| tehjoker wrote:
| That changes the game only slightly. Large companies will
| then be able to hold out over smaller ones far larger
| reentrenching monopolist behavior. Basically, market
| mechanisms always favor the rich. You need a fair system not
| one based on money assuming you even think patents are
| defensible.
| akersten wrote:
| If that could be implemented fairly (scaling costs based on
| total revenue so small-time businesses aren't locked out of
| the system, without giving non-producers/patent trolls a free
| $0 patent) then that seems like a good compromise.
| erk__ wrote:
| But this will not solve anything else about patents, there
| will be less reason to license them and such as the amount of
| time they can run for without any special income through the
| patent will be much less. Thus giving companies and inventors
| with a large capital a larger one up on the people that
| patents are also supposed to protect.
| bhupy wrote:
| Aren't software patents already all but abolished?
| akersten wrote:
| That would be (wonderful!) news to me. Not in the US, as far
| as I know, they're alive and well.
| monocasa wrote:
| Alice Corp forbids patents for a normal, noncomputer action
| just taken on a computer (calculate interest, but on a
| computer!), but allows software patents otherwise.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The entire country should be united against the eastern
| district of Texas. It's insane how much money and opportunity
| those idiots have cost the entire populace.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > In a decision issued on Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert
| Schroeder in Tyler, Texas rejected Apple's request for a new
| trial and several other claims.
|
| > These included that [...] jurors should have been told the U.S.
| Patent and Trademark Office had deemed VirnetX's claims
| "unpatentable."
|
| This article really should have elaborated on _why_ jurors didn
| 't need to be told that they were (apparently) awarding damages
| for infringement of unpatentable claims. Or really why, if the
| claims weren't patentable, the case wasn't thrown out of court.
|
| Or perhaps the claims were patentable, and the article needed to
| elaborate on exactly what Apple was trying to describe there.
|
| Either way, this is absolutely worthless coverage.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _In a decision issued on Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert
| Schroeder in Tyler, Texas rejected Apple's request ... that ...
| jurors should have been told the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
| had deemed VirnetX's claims "unpatentable."_
|
| If the USPTO deemed them unpatentable, where did the patents come
| from?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Looks like it's a concurrent case that Apple is pursuing, so
| VirnetX were granted the patents and sued Apple on that behalf.
| Apple is fighting this patent infringement lawsuit, and at the
| same time, seeking to invalidate the patents in a separate case
| in front of the US PTO:
|
| > _Apple contends that it is entitled to a new trial because
| the Court excluded evidence from parallel PTO proceedings.
| Docket No. 775 at 39. Apple suggests that the fact that the PTO
| has issued final written decisions finding each claim
| unpatentable over the prior art is relevant to damages._
|
| > _The Court is not persuaded that exclusion of the PTO
| proceedings warrants a new trial. VirnetX's appeals of those
| proceedings are ongoing, and none of the asserted claims has
| been cancelled. It is particularly unclear what probative value
| the PTO proceedings have in light of the fact that invalidity
| is not an issue in this case._
|
| > _To the extent Apple argues the decisions are relevant to
| damages, the relevance of the decisions is minimal because a
| number of the "decisions" cited in Apple's offer of proof2 on
| PTO proceedings were issued afterthe parties' alleged
| hypothetical negotiation date of September 2013. Compare Docket
| No. 721 at 18 ("If infringement is found, the date of the
| hypothetical negotiation would be September 2013, when the
| redesigned versions of VPN on Demand and FaceTime were
| released."), with Docket No. 692 (Apple's offer of proof)._
|
| > _Apple suggests that the evidence would have been relevant to
| the utility and advantages of the patented property over old
| modes or devices. Id. But, contrary to its assertions, Apple
| was not precluded from introducing evidence that the claimed
| invention "has no utility or advantages over old modes or
| devices." Id. The Court only prohibited the use of the PTO
| proceedings, and Apple was free to present whatever evidence
| relating to Georgia-Pacific factors 9 and 10 it so chose._
|
| > _Apple is not entitled to a new trial on this basis._
|
| Page 36 here:
| https://patentlyo.com/media/2018/09/Apple500MLoss.pdf
| monocasa wrote:
| > It is particularly unclear what probative value the PTO
| proceedings have in light of the fact that invalidity is not
| an issue in this case.
|
| How can invalidity possibly not be a factor?
| coolspot wrote:
| Those are VirnetX US Patents No. 6,502,135 and No. 7,490,151 .
|
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US6502135B1/en
|
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US7490151B2/en
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(page generated 2021-01-15 23:00 UTC)