Apple accused of false patent marking in new lawsuit - Page 2

Agreed. Leonard is flat wrong.

Excerpt:

Exactly what I thought, the lawyers found a law that allows them to make money, you can bet these law firms have a bunch of paralegals sitting in a room going through every product label and manual to see which patents are out of data.

Man I know of a few examples of products out there which I know are still being marked with patents that are over 30 yrs old. I have to go check this could make a few $ here. Better do it before these lawyers find them.

I cant find these patents on anything that came with my iPhone 4.

That is not true. For many years, people turning companies in have been able to enrich themselves and the government doesn't keep 100%.

Look up environmental enforcement actions, for example. Heck, if you turn someone in to the IRS, you can get a portion of the amount recovered.

I had a tech client sued over the same thing this year, mainly because they did keep on top of patent numbers on their web site, that when the pages were published we still in force. They have moved away from any listing of patent numbers and just state that their products are covered by patents or patents that are pending. Then it leaves the trolls to figure out which ones and they can't get sued for listing specific patents.

Good point, and based on Apples past, even the government could not prove that Jobs stock options were illegal since they could not prove it was done with intent, it was based on bad advice. Apple has a hell of record of not doing things like this with intent to deceive.

Damn that ruins my chance of going after those companies I know has hold patents listed, I think the were just to stupid to know better.

well that seals it - if I am not getting products based on patent no 4,577,216 then I am returning every single Apple product I own. NOT.

That appears to be a new thing, in this case it has to be over $2M for them to share with you. But this is not a fine, it is a reward, or finders fee. in the above cast they are splitting the fine with you, it would be like you turning people in for speeding you getting half the ticket fine for doing so.

http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/artic...n-tax-cheaters

I am kind of surprise Apple was not following this method, since many tech companies have moved to this method, I never understood what some companies stopped listing their patent probably because of these lawsuits. But is a fine live since it also make it harder to sue someone for infringing upon your patents.

$500 PER PRODUCT. $500 per item sold? Wow.

i don't get why there is dumb patents like being able to see email on your hone and then sue other companies for things almost all phones do

The general public doesn't care about patents, they care about products. Patents are for corporations/patent holders to deal with.

Only four words are needed to explain this kind of recurring BS: "Eastern District Of Texas."

The Eastern District of Texas is a thick brew of good ol' boy plaintiffs' lawyers, elected judges (who rely on them to finance their reelection at the very least) and plaintiff pleasing jurors. Even if Apple can show that Americans for Fair Patent Use was established a week before the lawsuit by the lawyer's wife and the judge's niece.....doesn't mean the case won't go against Apple. At $500 per item x iPods sold, one is talking many tens of billions of dollars - a multiple of Apple's total revenues selling the 'offending' items. Of course it would get appealed all the way, but even so, Apple is probably taking this one quite seriously.

If it's per product, that might cover iPhone, iPod, iPad, the Macs, and ATV. So... maybe $4,000 total. Now if they want it per item shipped, that would be even more ludicrous.

Oh, and way to go Eastern District of Texas with yet another asinine lawsuit. I assume some judge(s) are making a pretty penny doing these lawsuits or they'd toss them out like the total garbage that they are.

OK, based on that excerpt, we have another victory of lawyers and idiots. If it's for each item sold... WTF? So even if I had a product and said it was covered by every patent in existence, in what way is that harming the consumer? I mean, aside from wasted paper if it's printed in the manual? And if I had 10 expired patents listed on a non-patented item, and if, say, someone else wanted to make something similar, that other person might start with thinking: 'Hmmm, wonder how much licensing this stuff costs?', notice they're no longer valid, and go ahead and copy whatever it is anyways.

Or does a 2 minute lookup constitute too high of a barrier for competition? It's so aggravating to see these lawsuits come by over and over. The obvious, the inane, and now lawsuits when there isn't even a patent involved anymore. Go US Courts!

It's amazing what people can make a living off of in this country.

Hey, I was right until he found out that the Federal Circuit Court changed their interpretation of the definition back.

I can't help it if the Federal Circuit Court judges flip-flop on their interpretation of the definition of the law. Let's just wait another few months and I may be right again!

Actually you were correct in that the damage of $500 is per each individual product sold.

The Federal Circuits decision in Forest Group held that the false patent marking statute, 35 U.S.C. § 292, authorizes damages of up to $500 per product sold with a false mark. This overturned decades of precedent starting from London v. Everett H. Dunbar Corp., 179 F. 506 (1st Cir. 1910), which held that the $500 per offense language of the statute defines offense by each decision to mark products, rather than for each individual product sold.

So the original precedent was "$500 per offense" = "$500 per each decision to mark products".

The new decision (i.e. Forest Group) changed it to "$500 per offense" = "$500 per each individual product sold".

Now the result of the Solo Cup case was that there is a high bar for proving "intent to deceive", and Solo Cup provided rebuttal evidence to "intent to deceive" argument by providing evidence that shows "good faith reliance on the advice of counsel" (who said that Solo need-not remove the expired patent listing) and "out of a desire to reduce costs and business disruption".

As for the district court's decision that "$500 per offense" = "$500 per each decision to mark products" (this decision came out before Forest Group, so the district court was following the previous precedent), the Federal Circuit found the district court's meaning of "offense" as moot. Because there was no "intent to deceive", the Federal Circuit didn't even have to consider what the meaning of "offense" is.

Conclusion:
1) the current damage is $500 per each individual product sold.
2) there is a high bar to prove "intent to deceive".

Hmmm. "Americans" for Fair Patent Use? I think not. These aren't Americans. Someone should sue them for using "Americans" in their name. These sleezes all like hiding under that rock called "U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas". This is what happens when people can't get real jobs.

lawyers are, in general, a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

also, texas keeps asserting that they can secede from the union. we should let them.

So you guys are hypocrites then right? So when a small company sues apple for millions for patent infringement everybody says OMG thats messed up but when apple does something screwed up with the patent system everybody lets it go?

These laws exists to help stop patent trolls.

Apple and other Huge companies cant abuse the patent system while small companies cant.

Well to be fair the products are still covered by the patents. The patents just happen to have expired, is all.

Yeah right, whatever...

...so why did you come here, again?

There is such an enormous difference between suing over infringement on an obscure patent and listing a perfectly valid, applicable patent number that just happens to be expired.

Also, it seems the purpose of the regulation in this case is to prevent misleading the public regarding patent protection or status in order to increase sales of your product and the fines are there to provide a penalty intended to discourage the practice. And what I think most folks are saying here is that there is no evidence of intent to mislead.

Apple is not always in the right - and should be held accountable when they are in the wrong - just as any other company or individual or government etc. But the larger point is that the patent system itself is so convoluted that just as with our legal and political systems - it would seem that increasingly the result is not what is right or just or fair - and far from impartial - but rather whatever the deepest pockets or craftiest lawyers can concoct that wins. (that doesn't seem to be coming out nearly as elegant as the idea I have - to put it a bit simpler - in criminal proceedings for example, where we should have an outcome that is fair and just and right and punishments that are appropriate to the crime etc - instead we have whatever the best deal the lawyers are abel to hash out within a system so convoluted to innocent people go to prison and guilty people walk free).

No, they are not. An expired patent is no longer valid. The patent no longer applies and is no longer protected. To be fair.

I wouldn't think so. Does a patent under that number for that device exist? Yes, even though it is expired. And that expiration just covers whether or not the patent exclusivity is enforceable, wWhich it isn't when it is expired. You could make the counter claim that listing an expired patent is beneficial as when someone wants to look it up it is obvious it is expired and that all the filing documentation is immediately available to use fro new manufacturing without penalty.

Thats absolute BS. 1. How the heck were they harmed in the matter. 2. who cares if it expired 3. I don't even read the manuals little lone read or care about patents. And 3. the yahoos making this allegations are falsely mislead. They target Apple saying they knew what they were doing that they marketed with expired patents. How do these people know that? And does Apple market patents. No. They don't say anything about Patents. Why? Because people care about FaceTime but they don't care if it is patented. The only time I've ever heard Steve Jobs say the word patent was with the iPhone launch "Boy have we patented it" Whoever started this government group is ridiculously mindless. All it is is a bunch of lazy people ho have no aspects in life other than red tape and they sit on their crap computer all day trying to find a slip up. They're like the little Girl Scouts of the government. Make sure everyone does the right thing and all that. Government should be putting money towards notable causes not towards a bunch of little ladies in an office all proper trying to sue somebody because they slipped on the paper work. And what is the government going to do with that Billions of dollars they'd get? Probably go rebuild Iraq or bail out some bank. I was thinking about being a lawyer when I grew up but because of this one thing I don't think I want to be anymore. Cause it's corrupt and it probably will be for a long time if not forever. Ad besides Patents are stupid to begin with but they're there because of the sad brainless, greedy people that live in this world.

I hope Apple doesn't have to pay anything to these idiots or any of the other companies for that matter. If they do I'm sure they wouldn't have to pay $500 per product, they can surely talk it down in court but if they do thats ridiculous. Say they sold 100 million products thats $50B. $50B they could be innovating with or building new stores or facilities but instead they're gonna be paying for some idiot lawyers new Rolls Royce.

Probably because Apple hardly even includes any reading material in the products the whole allegation is BS