Washington Post:
You may have heard that Apple’s on the hook for $862 million in potential penalties after a jury ruled that it infringed on a patent owned by the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The university appears to be asking for roughly half that amount, about $400 million, but that is still a huge amount of money, particularly in relation to a) the size of the university’s budget and b) how much Apple’s spent on Washington lobbyists to head off just these types of lawsuits. And the stakes aren’t limited to the fines: If Apple is forced to pay future royalties, it’ll add to the production costs of future iPhones and iPads. While that won’t necessarily lead to increased prices for consumers, it could drag down the company’s profits over the long run even as it grapples with the reputational fallout of having copied someone else’s work.
Apple is almost sure to appeal, and it could very well get the fines reduced further or eliminated, as it did with another recent patent case this year. Still, the ruling represents a stinging rebuke for a company that has spent years accusing its rival, Samsung, of essentially stealing its hardware designs.
Many have and will call the University of Wisconsin–Madison a “patent troll” but that’s not necessarily the case in this particular situation. This does bring into question once again patents and lawsuits. The jury award could also open Apple up to further damages if they also loses a second lawsuit UW-Madison filed against the iPhone 6S, 6S Plus and the iPad Pro.
Sounds like someone’s aiming to finance a new university executive meeting room.
I agree with what Gruber wrote about this situation. I’m not in a position to speak on the patent’s merit, but regardless it doesn’t make UW a troll. Conducting research to advance the state of the art is a positive contribution, even if they never manufacture a thing. It’s a school, that’s not what they do. That’s basically what ARM does, too.
The thing that kills me with this situation and patents in general is when people assume that if you are found in violation of a patent, that you copied someone else’s idea (as is implied in the quoted Washington Post article).
It’s perfectly plausible that multiple parties arrive at the same ideas or methods independently, no copying involved. Most ideas, even patented ones, are not that hard to create. Especially in technology, necessity is the mother of invention; if you and a competitor have the same problem to solve, there’s a reasonable chance you will arrive at the same solution without copying. (Art and design can be a different matter.)
The notion that the first person to have an idea gets to claim it with a patent, as though it were a piece of land, is crazy to me.
They’re certainly not a troll, one thing is that they did the research to find the solution, not just buying a patent for the intention of suing everyone and extorting them.
However, the university is asking for something like $3 per iOS device, which I would consider to be too high. Their invention isn’t worth that much (basically a lookup table), I would say it is merely a few cent per CPU sale.
Except Apple referenced this exact patent as prior art in one of their patents, so it’s not like they can claim to have no knowledge of it.
It’s hilarious to watch people try to come up with clumsy ways of reconciling the contradiction in their beliefs highlighted by this situation.
The university is patent troll. They make money by forcing companies to pay them to license patents.
In this case, they’re even trying to get Apple to pay orders of magnitude more than Intel had to pay for the same license.
Just like Motorola a few years ago, they try to justify this by asking a percentage of the price of the iPhone as opposed to a percentage of the price of the CPU.
Patent trolls are useful. They get money for inventors that can’t afford to sue large companies.
That doesn’t mean they knew of it prior to their own invention though (I don’t know if they did or they didn’t). When you file a patent, you’re supposed to do prior art searches and cite what you find.
I mainly object to patents in general. The idea that I might invent something independently, then have to look around to see if I need to license permission to use it is ridiculous.
The alternative to patents are trade secrets, which severely limits innovation overall. Though I think most software patents are complete bunk.
You don’t know if that’s true because the Intel settlement is confidential and I haven’t seen anyone report on the amount.
However, even if your claim was true, there are a few differences: a) Intel settled rather than taking it to a decision. Settlement are always lower than a court finding b) Apple sold more units c) Intel provided funding for the research that led to the patent and the settlement makes their claim that Intel should get the IP for free go away.
They never claimed no knowledge. They claimed the patent isn’t valid.
And given that this was their defense they will likely appeal, paperwork might have already been filed
Craig claimed that they had no knowledge. Their claim that it wasn’t valid was rejected.
Apple wanted to license the patent.
Apple went to court only because the university would not agree to anywhere close to the terms they offered Intel.
Actually, AFAIK, Craig claimed that it is possible Apple had no prior knowledge …