Apple calls $506M WARF patent ruling 'fraught with error' in start of appeal

Posted:
in General Discussion
Apple is beginning its appeal of a $506 million penalty for violating a patent belonging to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, calling both the original jury verdict and subsequent rulings "fraught with error."




These include things like findings on infringement, and what Apple calls a "prejudicially inflated" damages theory, Law360 said, citing the company's opening brief. The document was originally submitted last Friday, but was only made public this week.

In Oct. 2015, Apple was ordered to pay WARF over $234 million in damages for infringements in A-series processors found in various iPhone and iPad models. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office declined Apple's request for a patent review, and damages were later ramped up to $506 million because Apple continued using infringing technology until the intellectual property expired in Dec. 2016.

Specifically the patent covered "predictor circuit" technology, a way of improving both performance and power consumption.

Apple is currently engaged in a number of legal battles, including even its original U.S. lawsuit against Samsung, which despite reaching a favorable trial verdict in 2012 is entering another damages retrial on May 14.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Mmm. This might be one they should consider dropping, before the damages start to eat into one week’s profit. 
  • Reply 2 of 10
    Suing Apple is a business model. 
    mike1redgeminipa
  • Reply 3 of 10
    WARF patent application filed June 13 2014. Apple R7 released September 20 2013. It seems Apple was using this method in production 9 month Prior to WARF even applying for the patent. ---edit--- There is an older patent that is being cited which is related and also owned by WARF.
    edited October 2017
  • Reply 4 of 10
    I thought that this was a rare case where Apple actually was in the wrong for once, as they had cited the WARF patent in one of their own patent filings, proving that they know about it but still decided not to license the IP.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    I thought that this was a rare case where Apple actually was in the wrong for once, as they had cited the WARF patent in one of their own patent filings, proving that they know about it but still decided not to license the IP.
    Citing prior art in a field does not imply infringement.  If anything, evidence Apple knew about an existing patent should rather imply that they looked at it and determined that their own work was not infringing.  At least to the best of their interpretation.  Or that they looked at it and might have made adjustments to their own implementation to avoid infringement.  Those are the more likely implications of a company having cited an existing patent.  
    edited October 2017 randominternetpersonhcrefugeeracerhomiemagman1979ronnjony0SpamSandwich
  • Reply 6 of 10
    k2kwk2kw Posts: 2,075member
    I thought that this was a rare case where Apple actually was in the wrong for once, as they had cited the WARF patent in one of their own patent filings, proving that they know about it but still decided not to license the IP.
    Does Apple legal ever win Patent cases? Not  Even Samsung.   Their lawyers seem to be able to secure permanent employment.  Has WARF sued Qualcomm or had Qualcomm settled out of court.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    Will they get justice in wisconsin? Isn't this a little difficult given the fact that it is a local University and the jury will could be wanting to send their children there in the future.
    No evidence but I'd certainly be asking for a change of venue. IANAL etc so the above can be ignored.

    racerhomie
  • Reply 8 of 10
    Among the myriad of problems with patents is the seemingly arbitrary nature of the awards gifted
    by lay juries.   A smartphone reflects (tens of) thousands of patented ideas even though almost all
    shouldn't be patented because they would have been re-discovered by either straightforward
    or creative engineering by other teams than the patent holder.   If every patent holder could get a dollar
    for their first-to-rubber-stamp-by-the-USPTO idea for each phone, the cost to the user would be horrendous.

    Even the "smallest saleable unit" analysis where the royalty is based on the cost of a CPU chip rather
    than the whole consumer product has problems.   See:

    http://www.iam-media.com/Intelligence/IAM-Yearbook/2018/Country-by-country/Smallest-saleable-patent-practising-unit-doctrine-developments-and-challenges

    I think royalties for anyone's one particular idea should just be divided by the number of other
    patents comprising the device.   So if a troll (and yes, universities as NPE's fit the definition of a troll)
    wants more than a penny for their thoughts, they should just get into the product manufacturing
    business themselves.
    redgeminiparadarthekat
  • Reply 9 of 10
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    loquitur said:
    Among the myriad of problems with patents is the seemingly arbitrary nature of the awards gifted
    by lay juries.   A smartphone reflects (tens of) thousands of patented ideas even though almost all
    shouldn't be patented because they would have been re-discovered by either straightforward
    or creative engineering by other teams than the patent holder.   If every patent holder could get a dollar
    for their first-to-rubber-stamp-by-the-USPTO idea for each phone, the cost to the user would be horrendous.

    Even the "smallest saleable unit" analysis where the royalty is based on the cost of a CPU chip rather
    than the whole consumer product has problems.   See:

    http://www.iam-media.com/Intelligence/IAM-Yearbook/2018/Country-by-country/Smallest-saleable-patent-practising-unit-doctrine-developments-and-challenges

    I think royalties for anyone's one particular idea should just be divided by the number of other
    patents comprising the device.   So if a troll (and yes, universities as NPE's fit the definition of a troll)
    wants more than a penny for their thoughts, they should just get into the product manufacturing
    business themselves.
    Ah, another IAM reader! Great source. 
  • Reply 10 of 10
    k2kwk2kw Posts: 2,075member
    Will they get justice in wisconsin? Isn't this a little difficult given the fact that it is a local University and the jury will could be wanting to send their children there in the future.
    No evidence but I'd certainly be asking for a change of venue. IANAL etc so the above can be ignored.

    I think one should ask if Wisconsin could get a fair trial in California who would probably be biased to Apple due to its humongous presence there.   Is even the whole state of WI worth as much as APPLE?  I haven't seen people lineup to buy cheese in while?
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