A jury in the Tyler district court found Apple guilty of infringing three patents and said it should be penalised to the tune of $208 million per patent.
Apple launched an emergency motion on Sunday following the verdict, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The patents are owned by Yalester inventor David Gelernter, and concern ways data is saved and managed, with the plaintiff alleging that Macintosh PCs, iPhones and iPads breach his patents. He started a company called Mirror Worlds in 1991. There’s no patent trolling here – Gelernter has a quiver of patents covering many different of computer systems.
If the judge in the case refuses to stay the implementation of the jury’s decision, it will be one of the biggest payments made in the USA. The original complaint (PDF) can be found.here.
Be good to see the devil's minion, st. eve of jobs and his crew have to answer for their crimes against humanity. But barring that, a nice big payment to Gelernter will do, for now.
And don't bother with your pathetic spin attempts, fruity fanbois. We're not listening.
Owning a bunch of patents does not necessaryily mean one is not a patent troll. How hard did Prof. Gelernter try to commercialize these alleged inventions? That's the issue.
www.be-anon.net.tc
Actually that's not the issue. No one measures 'how hard you try' to commercialize a patent - a judge may take it into consideration but the fact of the matter is that Apple didn't do their due diligence when creating their product to credit the people that made it possible.
Once you own the patent, your responsibility is to enforce your patent as Gelernter has done. It was Apple's responsibility to ensure that they were not infringing any patents with their products.
I think Apple may be interested in finding the services of other intellectual property legal specialists from here on out.
I hate Apple myself, but they're the victims of patent trolling on this occasion. One of the main "inventions" is that flip-book style thing that iTunes uses for CD covers, which IMO should not be patentable at all.
Disagree. Whether one is a patent troll is matter for public opinion, not a matter of intellectual property law. A patent troll is someone who files a patent for an "invention" but makes no effort to commercialize it. The alleged inventor merely waits for others to put in the work and resources necessarily to bring the process at issue to market then sues. I have no idea whether Prof. Gelemter is such an individual; however, others have attacked his lawsuit on this ground. See
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/patent-troll-sues-apple-google-over-wireless-e-mail/
so people who do all the work to discover the technology don't deserve any compensation?
Where do you think Apple will get the money to pay?
Suing others and price increases for the public - or does anyone believe the will they stop their "patent" guerrilla ?!
I can only see one category of people who's really winning this absurdity!
Such an arrogant pr*ck you are. Nobody cares what you think. Go back to playing at being important from behind a keyboard.
Apple Wins Patents for Cover Flow, Time Machine and Magic Mouse
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/10/apple-wins-patents-for-cover-flow-time-machine-and-magic-mouse.html
@jontam You don't need the courts to be label someone as a patent troll.