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Apple appeals $625.5 million ruling in Cover Flow patent dispute

post #1 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:03am
Thread Starter 
Apple has officially appealed a patent violation ruling issued last week, challenging a jury's decision to award $625.5 million to a company for infringement related to Spotlight, Cover Flow and Time Machine.

Last week it was revealed that Mirror Worlds LLC won a lawsuit filed in 2008 that accused Apple of infringing on three patents it owns. The patent holder was awarded $625.5 million by a jury in a Tyler County Court in Eastern Texas.

But according to Bloomberg, Apple has asked the court for an emergency stay from the ruling, arguing that Mirror Worlds would be "triple dipping" in collecting $208.5 million on each of the patents. Apple is attempting to convince the court that there are outstanding issues with two of the patents.

Presiding over the case, U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis has asked the lawyers on each side to submit legal arguments on the damages awarded by the Tyler County jury. Apple called an assertion by Mirror Worlds that the damages should be cumulative "erroneous and objectionable."

Apple has also requested that the court find Apple is not infringing on two of the patents. Judge Davis reportedly said if he granted Apple's request, he would strike the amount of damages attributed to those two patents.

The lawsuit accused Apple of infringing on patents for creating "streams" of documents sorted by time. The patents were originally filed for by Yale professor David Gelernter in 1999, who said he believes Apple's Spotlight, Time Machine and Cover Flow features were taken from his ideas on "lifesreaming."
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post #2 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:08am
Does that really say $625 million?

That seems huge and excessive. The lawyers must be celebrating right now, they're making enough to retire off of.
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post #3 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:13am
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Originally Posted by Goldenclaw View Post

Does that really say $625 million?

That seems huge and excessive. The lawyers must be celebrating right now, they're making enough to retire off of.

Right. if it was the other way around there would be dancing in the streets. I hope this verdict sticks. No one is above the law.
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post #4 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:16am
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Originally Posted by sapporobabyrtrns View Post

Right. if it was the other way around there would be dancing in the streets. I hope this verdict sticks. No one is above the law.

You must not follow these East Texas patent trials very closely. Or other information relating to how Apple acquired Cover Flow.
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post #5 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:25am
$625 Million? Apple might as well just spill hot coffee on them.
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post #6 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:40am
Software patent violation for $625M.. I think that is really excessive. Two of these patents are on how something is displayed, is questionable, and something not worth 9 figures. Apple will probably end up paying 100-200..
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post #7 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slang4Art View Post

You must not follow these East Texas patent trials very closely. Or other information relating to how Apple acquired Cover Flow.

What I recall is that CoverFlow was acquired from third party developers by Apple. How does that work a few years down the road when it turns out that the work isn't wholly owned by the party that you are buying it from? Aren't the originals owners who benefited also libel for any infringement?

My fav quote from the article are from the last sentence ... "The patents were originally filed for by Yale professor David Gelernter in 1999, who said he believes Apple's Spotlight, Time Machine and Cover Flow features were taken from his ideas on "lifesreaming."

I think that Professor Gelernter's ideas on 'life reaming' are alive and well.
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post #8 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:54am
Congratulations, professor! You won the lottery for an incredibly obvious and typical application of the database sort command.
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post #9 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:54am
Wheee Haww! They like'm big down in texas.....

Read up on Tyler Texas right here:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48/48457.html

Just doesn't seem like an Intellectual Property hotbed to me. Seems more like a litigational sausage factory to me.
But with less then 10% of the population holding college degrees, well, it seems kind of odd that they crank out these complicated cases so often.
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post #10 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by battiato1981 View Post

What I recall is that CoverFlow was acquired from third party developers by Apple. How does that work a few years down the road when it turns out that the work isn't wholly owned by the party that you are buying it from? Aren't the originals owners who benefited also libel for any infringement?

Exactly. At the very least it seems that Apple could recover whatever they paid for CoverFlow from the people who sold it to them.

An interesting question, can you sell something you don't own, if you don't know you didn't own it? A little like paying for something with a counterfeit bill that you got from a bank. Even if you didn't know it was counterfeit, you're still liable.
A.k.a. AppleHead on other forums.
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A.k.a. AppleHead on other forums.
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post #11 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by czmyt View Post

Congratulations, professor! You won the lottery for an incredibly obvious and typical application of the database sort command.

Yeah - on the face of it this sounds ridiculous. I wonder if there is a patent of stacking physical object on top of one another (cards., documents, whatever)? You can add 'in time' if you like - you know, the oldest at the bottom...
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post #12 of 52
10/4/10 at 11:59am
Quote:
I think that Professor Gelernter's ideas on 'life reaming' are alive and well.

Appleinsider forgot spell check. It was lifestreaming. But i'm sure you knew that. hehe.
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post #13 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:06pm
So much money for something that isn't even owned by the creator now (the professor) and bearing a passing resemblance to something that Apple picked up from a guy who made it back in 2000 (coverflow).

Neither the creator nor the company who now own the patent have made a product in the 11 years since it was thought up. Even if they did it would be neither coverflow nor Time Machine.

Apple are right to appeal and should ask to have the case moved to a California court because of the fact that the everyone in the east texas courts are a. probably related and b. on the 'payroll'
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post #14 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:07pm
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Originally Posted by lightstriker View Post

$625 Million? Apple might as well just spill hot coffee on them.

Not mentioned in the article above: the patents were sold/purchased for $5 million. One of Apple's arguments was that the infringement shouldn't be worth more than that. Honestly, that seems right. Yeah, I'm biased, but the guy who INVENTED the idea got his $$ (actually, he got $210k, because the $5m was a second sale).

I want to know what percentage of these East Texas rulings get over-turned on appeal. Hopefully it's most of them. Otherwise, they need to bulldoze over the court and make a water-park.
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post #15 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by irnchriz View Post

So much money for something that isn't even owned by the creator now (the professor) and bearing a passing resemblance to something that Apple picked up from a guy who made it back in 2000 (coverflow).

Neither the creator nor the company who now own the patent have made a product in the 11 years since it was thought up. Even if they did it would be neither coverflow nor Time Machine.

Apple are right to appeal and should ask to have the case moved to a California court because of the fact that the everyone in the east texas courts are a. probably related and b. on the 'payroll'

I noticed that the lawsuit Microsoft filed against the Android phone was NOT in East Texas. I think I might have to grudgingly respect them for that.

And the problem with the East Texas court isn't inbreeding. It's just that they clearly have a prejudice. It's apparent in their decisions. There should be provisions for redistributing cases when a court shows such obvious prejudices.
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post #16 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by czmyt View Post

Congratulations, professor! You won the lottery for an incredibly obvious and typical application of the database sort command.

I don't think this is really fair.

For starters the Professor didn't just have an obvious idea, he had a detailed implementation of it that the courts have currently ruled as essentially similar to what CoverFlow and Time Machine are. Secondly, from what I heard, the professor doesn't get a dime even though it was his idea. The idea belongs to the company that sued.

So here we have another case where everyone trying to do original work and actually thinking up the ideas, loses, and the lawyers, and the companies that rape/buy the ideas win. The exact opposite of what copyright law is supposed to do.

On another note, do you think anyone at Apple Insider will ever notice that the previous story doesn't allow anyone to comment?
That might be why, you know, no one has commented.
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post #17 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sapporobabyrtrns View Post

Right. if it was the other way around there would be dancing in the streets. I hope this verdict sticks. No one is above the law.

troll.
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post #18 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:14pm
$625M is absolutely ridiculous, considering the limited contribution these ideas make to Apple products and that the inventors-of-record couldn't even implement their ideas.

Correction: scopeware.com sold a product named Vision, but they went out of business in May 2004. Details about this can be dredged up on www.archive.org.
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post #19 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:20pm
wow. $625 MILLION....... seriously? We're 60% of the way to a BILLION dollars there...

For what??

It seriously begs a question:

Aside from Apple's alleged infringement, where else has "lifestream" made any money in the ELEVEN YEARS since the patent was filed? How has any value or income been "lost" as a result of Apple "stealing" the idea? Did Cover Flow, Spotlight, and Time Machine specifically and directly earn Apple $625 million? Would these ideas have earned the plaintiff anything near that? Even with a "punitive damages" consideration, ascribing this much value to an idea that has otherwise earned NOTHING, is an absolute horror of a precedent.

It's really questionable... Would their patents have earned ANYTHING if Apple hadn't started applying those features?

It seems to me that if Apple is found "guilty" of infringement, they should 'backpay' a reasonable license fee (whatever they'd normally pay for a licensed feature of their OS) plus a bit for 'punitive' damage. This amount sounds more like "everything they've earned from any software - specifically OSX - containing the infringed patent..." as if the other 98% of the functionality of the OS doesn't count or something....

Ridiculous....
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post #20 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:21pm
Remember HyperCard?
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post #21 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:22pm
Hypercard by released by Apple in 1987 was stacked documents sorted by time.
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post #22 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post

I don't think this is really fair.

For starters the Professor didn't just have an obvious idea, he had a detailed implementation of it that the courts have currently ruled as essentially similar to what CoverFlow and Time Machine are. Secondly, from what I heard, the professor doesn't get a dime even though it was his idea. The idea belongs to the company that sued.

So here we have another case where everyone trying to do original work and actually thinking up the ideas, looses, and the lawyers, and the companies that rape/buy the ideas win. The exact opposite of what copyright law is supposed to do.

On another note, do you think anyone at Apple Insider will ever notice that the previous story doesn't allow anyone to comment?
That might be why, you know, no one has commented.

Forgive me, but are the two words Loose & Lose mean the same thing? been a while since I've been in school.
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post #23 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:32pm
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Originally Posted by zindako View Post

Forgive me, but are the two words Loose & Lose mean the same thing? been a while since I've been in school.

No, they are not the same. Lots of people use loose when they really mean lose.
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post #24 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:38pm
I am responsible for making sure that all corporate data is backed up. The tapes are stacked by day of the week, and along with a month-end backup and a year-end backup.

Should I send a check to this guy in the event I have to go "back in time" to find a missing file from one of our historical backups? Heaven forbid I step on a patent covering this method of data retrieval.
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post #25 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:38pm
Suck it Up Apple... You win some you Lose Some.
"Why iPhone"... Hmmm?
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"Why iPhone"... Hmmm?
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post #26 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by zindako View Post

Forgive me, but are the two words Loose & Lose mean the same thing? been a while since I've been in school.

You spent all that time and effort just to criticise a spelling mistake? wow.
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post #27 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:54pm
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Originally Posted by mac_dog View Post

troll.

Couldn't agree more!!! Don't these people realize that we love Steve and he and Apple should be allowed to do anything they want. Anyone who disagrees is a troll....

Like ALL of you here (and obviously you Mad Dog), I know more about the law than the courts. Apple will win in the end!! Of course, I hope Apple sues HTC out of business just like they sued Psystar out of business....

Go Steve... Wooo Hooo!!!!!!
iMac 24" (Late 07), iMac 17" G5, Mac mini (Early 09), MacBook (Mid 07), iPad WiFi 32, iPhone 4, iBook G4 1.2, HP Compaq 610 Laptop, eMachine W5233, (1) Xserve G5 and (1) Xserve G5 Cluster node with...
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iMac 24" (Late 07), iMac 17" G5, Mac mini (Early 09), MacBook (Mid 07), iPad WiFi 32, iPhone 4, iBook G4 1.2, HP Compaq 610 Laptop, eMachine W5233, (1) Xserve G5 and (1) Xserve G5 Cluster node with...
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post #28 of 52
10/4/10 at 12:56pm
Technology patents should die.
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post #29 of 52
10/4/10 at 1:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronbo View Post

Not mentioned in the article above: the patents were sold/purchased for $5 million. One of Apple's arguments was that the infringement shouldn't be worth more than that. Honestly, that seems right. Yeah, I'm biased, but the guy who INVENTED the idea got his $$ (actually, he got $210k, because the $5m was a second sale).

I want to know what percentage of these East Texas rulings get over-turned on appeal. Hopefully it's most of them. Otherwise, they need to bulldoze over the court and make a water-park.

Why a water-park?
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post #30 of 52
10/4/10 at 1:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post

On another note, do you think anyone at Apple Insider will ever notice that the previous story doesn't allow anyone to comment?
That might be why, you know, no one has commented.

Yeah, I noticed. Not to go off-topic here, but the new AppleTV leaves a lot to be desired.....
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post #31 of 52
10/4/10 at 1:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

Yeah, I noticed. Not to go off-topic here, but the new AppleTV leaves a lot to be desired.....

I have to agree, my older AppleTV is working just fine, this new one is just a bit step backwards with less storage, but same technology.
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post #32 of 52
10/4/10 at 1:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by czmyt View Post

Congratulations, professor! You won the lottery for an incredibly obvious and typical application of the database sort command.

Which will be one of the reasons for it being overturned.
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post #33 of 52
10/4/10 at 1:18pm
Apple really needs to donate a computer to everyone in town and give the schools a computer lab.
Be a lot cheaper in the long run.
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post #34 of 52
10/4/10 at 1:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by czmyt View Post

Congratulations, professor! You won the lottery...

Why? The professor is not part of the lawsuit.
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post #35 of 52
10/4/10 at 1:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by paxman View Post

Yeah - on the face of it this sounds ridiculous. I wonder if there is a patent of stacking physical object on top of one another (cards., documents, whatever)?

There's a society devoted specifically to that...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f-kfRREA8M
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post #36 of 52
10/4/10 at 1:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by irnchriz View Post

So much money for something that isn't even owned by the creator now (the professor) and bearing a passing resemblance to something that Apple picked up from a guy who made it back in 2000 (coverflow).

Made in 2005 and Apple purchased in 2006.
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post #37 of 52
10/4/10 at 2:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris_CA View Post

There's a society devoted specifically to that...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f-kfRREA8M

DOH!!

(That's one very funny video)
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post #38 of 52
10/4/10 at 2:12pm
There is a stunning amount of ignorance in these posts about what IP law is and how it works. First off, the article itself is misleading in several places as it references a "Tyler County Court." Which is not true -- this lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. In other words, this is not a podunk in-bred local court with some yokel for the judge. This judge was appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the US Senate. This is a very big deal.

Second, Judge Davis is not some former small-town lawyer but has a BS in mathematics and an MS in IT Management, and worked as a computer programmer and systems analyst before going to law school. He was a highly respected judge in the Texas state court system and practiced in Dallas. Anyone who knows anything about IT knows that the north Dallas suburbs of Plano, Frisco, etc. have a ton of high-tech companies (i.e. Fujitsu's US headquarters).

This is why a massive number of IP / patent lawsuits are filed in the ED Tex. It has judges with deep technical skills, hires the top law school graduates (all with technical degrees and experience, some even with Ph.D.s) as clerks, and has a streamlined process whereby the cases can get heard much sooner than in other districts. (3-5 years is common in other districts; this was two years start to finish.)

Furthermore, it is completely misleading to say that this district is biased towards the holders of patents. It absolutely is not. Many claims get transferred there and licensing agreement sometimes stipulate to jurisdiction there precisely because it's not a bunch of yokels. Defendant firms like Tyler and Sherman (the other division of ED Tex) because of the sophistication of the judges and the speed in getting disputes resolved.

Right or wrong, $600m+ is the verdict. Patent law requires damages be set in reference to the money obtained by the infringer, in this case Apple. Having decided that Apple infringed the patent, the jury then listened to evidence on how profitable iTunes has been for Apple and set damages accordingly. Again, this is not some runaway, jackpot judgment and it happens all the time in IP litigation.
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post #39 of 52
10/4/10 at 2:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mark212 View Post

There is a stunning amount of ignorance in these posts about what IP law is and how it works. First off, the article itself is misleading in several places as it references a "Tyler County Court." Which is not true -- this lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. In other words, this is not a podunk in-bred local court with some yokel for the judge. This judge was appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the US Senate. This is a very big deal.

Second, Judge Davis is not some former small-town lawyer but has a BS in mathematics and an MS in IT Management, and worked as a computer programmer and systems analyst before going to law school. He was a highly respected judge in the Texas state court system and practiced in Dallas. Anyone who knows anything about IT knows that the north Dallas suburbs of Plano, Frisco, etc. have a ton of high-tech companies (i.e. Fujitsu's US headquarters).

This is why a massive number of IP / patent lawsuits are filed in the ED Tex. It has judges with deep technical skills, hires the top law school graduates (all with technical degrees and experience, some even with Ph.D.s) as clerks, and has a streamlined process whereby the cases can get heard much sooner than in other districts. (3-5 years is common in other districts; this was two years start to finish.)

Furthermore, it is completely misleading to say that this district is biased towards the holders of patents. It absolutely is not. Many claims get transferred there and licensing agreement sometimes stipulate to jurisdiction there precisely because it's not a bunch of yokels. Defendant firms like Tyler and Sherman (the other division of ED Tex) because of the sophistication of the judges and the speed in getting disputes resolved.

Right or wrong, $600m+ is the verdict. Patent law requires damages be set in reference to the money obtained by the infringer, in this case Apple. Having decided that Apple infringed the patent, the jury then listened to evidence on how profitable iTunes has been for Apple and set damages accordingly. Again, this is not some runaway, jackpot judgment and it happens all the time in IP litigation.

I disagree, the Tyler court has a consistent track record of finding in favour of patent holders.
This is most likely due to the demographics of the jury, rather than the credentials of the judge and lawyers.
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post #40 of 52
10/4/10 at 3:36pm
Apple can dish it out, but it can't take it. What goes around, comes around.
Fragmentation is not just something we have to acknowledge and accept. Fragmentation is something that we deal with every day, and we must accept it as a fact of the iPhone platform experience.

Ste...
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Fragmentation is not just something we have to acknowledge and accept. Fragmentation is something that we deal with every day, and we must accept it as a fact of the iPhone platform experience.

Ste...
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