Apple sued by University of Wisconsin over A7 chip at heart of iPhone, iPad

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 62
    apple will take them to court till the university
    runs out of $
  • Reply 22 of 62
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    selva raj wrote: »

    Intel settled and took a license back in 2009.
  • Reply 23 of 62
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    Look at that. Another patent holder waiting 18 years before suing “infringers”.

    They've asserted that patent before. Apple should have been aware of it.
  • Reply 24 of 62
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    wizard69 wrote: »
    Beyond all of that I would imagine that there was an attempt at an agreement before this resulted in a legal action. If so Apple has already read the patent and declined to license the technology. In other words Apple believes it has a strong case that will stand up in court even with a jury trial.

    I don't know that Apple really operates that way. Remember all the litigation that happened when Nokia asked Apple to license their patent portfolio? After a years' worth of lawsuits Apple finally took a license, even cross-licensing some iPhone patents as Nokia had been asking. I'd imagine Apple was aware they were probably using IP without permission when Nokia first came calling. I personally think some companies have decided that it's less expensive overall to wait and see how serious patent holders are rather than just accepting every licensing demand.
  • Reply 25 of 62
    Originally Posted by focher View Post

    I don't think they can be labeled as "waiting 18 years" when the A7 just came out a few months ago.

     

    Because the A7 was the first chip to employ a Table Based Data Speculation Circuit for Parallel Processing Computer, I’m sure¡

     

    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post

    They've asserted that patent before. Apple should have been aware of it.

     

    Oh? Against whom?

  • Reply 26 of 62
    ktappektappe Posts: 824member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Pooch View Post



    a publicly funded university which ostensibly used public monies to develop a technology. seems like it ought to be available to anyone to use ...

     

    This. The entire point of a university is to disseminate information, not to patent it and withhold it.

  • Reply 27 of 62
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    Because the A7 was the first chip to employ a Table Based Data Speculation Circuit for Parallel Processing Computer, I’m sure¡


    Oh? Against whom?

    Intel for one, who eventually agreed to license it. Another poster even posted a link for it earlier in the thread.

    EDIT: IBM, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, and Infineon have also settled IP infringement suits brought by the university.
  • Reply 28 of 62
    kpomkpom Posts: 660member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ktappe View Post

     

     

    This. The entire point of a university is to disseminate information, not to patent it and withhold it.


     

    Arguably, if the university developed the technology, it can use royalties to reduce the costs to the taxpayers of operating the research lab.

  • Reply 29 of 62
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    ktappe wrote: »
    This. The entire point of a university is to disseminate information, not to patent it and withhold it.

    How are they withholding it?
  • Reply 30 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dysamoria View Post



    And WARF is using that "invention" how?

     

     

    WARF is an arm of the UW that manages the patents developed by the entire UW.  The funds from those patents support significant amounts of the operating costs and research done by the UW.  WARF has no issue licensing the patents (that's why it exists), but it also must defend those patents as part of it's licensing agreements as well.

     

    So, if an organization provides funds for a grant and the UW patents research with an agreement to license the patent back to the organization the UW is legally obligated to defend it.  In that case the patent IS being used.  I have no idea if that's the case on this patent but you might not want to jump to conclusions.

     

    Also, the UW is one of the largest public research institutions in the country.  The costs for that research would be significantly higher for the taxpayers if the UW was unable to use income from it's inventions to help fund itself.  WARF has provided over $1 Billion in funding to the UW.

  • Reply 31 of 62
    I'd love to be a juror in this case. I live in Madison, the seat of the Federal court in the western district, am a retired attorney and UW employee, CS educated, and Apple owner, both stocks and products.

    I would find it a great experience understanding patent interpretation. I studied IP law including patents but never patent language writing and interpretation -- a whole subspecialty. In particular, what would be interesting is learning the extent to which the court's jury instructions detail how the jury must evaluate patent language in reaching their results.

    I'm reminded of the Samsung v Apple case in which the jury foreman, who had experience with his own patents, had to think in detail about patent interpretation, and was surprised that the court had not instructed the jury on patent interpretation -- a critical mistake in my view.
  • Reply 32 of 62

    Wait, Apple doesn't design their processors. They only use ARM designs that Samsung makes for them. How come Apple is getting sued over something they didn't create? /S

  • Reply 33 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

     

     

    Look at that. Another patent holder waiting 18 years before suing “infringers”.


    You expect them to sue Apple before the A7 was invented?

  • Reply 34 of 62
    Of course lets not forget the money part.
  • Reply 35 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post





    Intel for one, who eventually agreed to license it. Another poster even posted a link for it earlier in the thread.



    EDIT: IBM, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, and Infineon have also settled IP infringement suits brought by the university.

     

    Did everyone else on your list also settle over this exact same patent? I doubt it, and it appears you just wanted to add a bunch of names to your list to imply that Apple was using something that everyone else in this field already knew and licensed.

  • Reply 36 of 62
    If predicting future calculations to be performed and then storing them for excrcusion is the crux of the dispute I hope Wisconsin Uni invented it before the 68k Motorola series started the pipeline predictions as it sound very similar technology and hence would be neither novel or something that was not obvious from prior art. Hence the Wisconsin patents would be invalid if they came later and were not radically different to the methods implemented by Motorolam.
  • Reply 37 of 62
    The fact that Apple has referenced the patent in question, says the claim, must mean that Apple is sure that their implementation is outside the scope of UW's patent. The case will then hinge on patent interpretation and how broadly the patent is read.
  • Reply 38 of 62
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    Did everyone else on your list also settle over this exact same patent? I doubt it, and it appears you just wanted to add a bunch of names to your list to imply that Apple was using something that everyone else in this field already knew and licensed.

    Intel was sued for infringement and settled on licensing for that exact patent 4 years ago. The others I listed were also sued and eventually licensed University IP involving processors but whether they took a license to the '752 patent along with other patents applicable to processor design I don't know. I would assume they would rather than litigate each processor patent individually, but it's only a guess.
  • Reply 39 of 62
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    dysamoria wrote: »
    And WARF is using that "invention" how?

    Once again, the whole damn system of copyrights and patents needs to be utterly wiped away and started over from scratch. There's zero invention any more because everything has been patented, including things no one actually invented, and the few entities actually utilizing the ideas are sued by everyone who claims to have patented the ideas... And half of the filings are duplications of other ideas already filed and so much of it doesn't even make sense to patent. And copyright is way too long (thank Disney).

    But so long as the lawyers are making millions in this business, it's not going to change. The only people benefitting from patent law these days are the wealthy, not the small inventor.

    Sometimes a invention can't be used by the person or entity that patented it. Look at Robert Kearns who patented the intermittent windshield wiper. Would you have him start an entire car company just so he could use his invention?
  • Reply 40 of 62
    arlorarlor Posts: 532member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jpmia View Post



    apple will take them to court till the university

    runs out of $

     

    Unlikely. These things almost always settle. Apple can afford it. 

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