US Supreme Court sides with Apple, declines to hear appeal on patent case
Apple's victory in a high-profile patent infringement case will stand after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revisit the lawsuit filed by Mirror Worlds LLC.
The complaint, first filed in 2008, alleged that Apple's Spotlight search feature was in violation of a patented invention owned by Mirror Worlds. The accuser initially won a $625.5 million ruling, but the decision was overturned in an Apple in 2011.
Mirror Worlds hoped to reverse that decision again with its own appeal, which made its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. But the high court has declined to hear the case, according to Bloomberg, which means Apple's victory will stand.
The initial victory for Mirror Worlds came in a jury trial in U.S. District Court in Tyler County, Texas, where patent suits are frequently filed because of a favorable track record for plaintiffs. The original trial covered three patents, but the appeal submitted to ??and declined by ??the Supreme Court related to just one invention.
The Mirror Worlds complaint was based on patents related to creating "streams" of documents sorted by time. In addition to Spotlight, the suit also took issue with Apple's Cover Flow and Time Machine functions in OS X.
The complaint, first filed in 2008, alleged that Apple's Spotlight search feature was in violation of a patented invention owned by Mirror Worlds. The accuser initially won a $625.5 million ruling, but the decision was overturned in an Apple in 2011.
Mirror Worlds hoped to reverse that decision again with its own appeal, which made its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. But the high court has declined to hear the case, according to Bloomberg, which means Apple's victory will stand.
The initial victory for Mirror Worlds came in a jury trial in U.S. District Court in Tyler County, Texas, where patent suits are frequently filed because of a favorable track record for plaintiffs. The original trial covered three patents, but the appeal submitted to ??and declined by ??the Supreme Court related to just one invention.
The Mirror Worlds complaint was based on patents related to creating "streams" of documents sorted by time. In addition to Spotlight, the suit also took issue with Apple's Cover Flow and Time Machine functions in OS X.
Comments
But look! What do we see today? AAPL bellow 400$??? Again?!? Is it true? Yes it is!
It has nothing to do with Apple but more with Wall Street.
They are betting the bank against Apple to fail without Steve Jobs.
Everything idea of Apple is treated with disdain and every positive factor is cast in doubt and disbelief.
And nothing Apple do is good enough.
Yes Wall Street is trying very hard to fulfill their own prophecy and nothing else.
Yes they don't want to look like fools in the eyes of world with their negative outlook on Apple when proven wrong.
Very true. And it is worth noting that the Supreme Court generally grants appeals based on application/mis-application of law, not so much the facts of the case. Things like inappropriate claims of precedent/nonprecedent etc. And unless one can argue the situation will directly affect Constitutional law the Supreme Court rarely hears the case themselves. More often than not they review the argument and if they agree with the claim they flip it back to the court that ruled before to redo with the new facts of law.
Patents are meaningless if they can't be sold or enforced.
It's amazing how after google decides to rip off iOS, google funds a massive PR campaign against patents and suddenly everyone thinks its ok to rip others off (that is, until someone rips their stuff off, or makes something vaguely familiar.)
I have a couple patents. I've seen many articles claiming patents were obvious or bogus, and in every case the person writing the article didn't even read the patent.
For instance, Amazon's so-called "one click patent" doesn't cover buying a product with a single click.
It is deliberately called "one click patent" to make it seem like it's a trivial obvious thing, but it is not.
Those who oppose patents want Apple to be unable to defend itself when others steal its work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
The complaint, first filed in 2008, alleged that Apple's Spotlight search feature was in violation of a patented invention owned by Mirror Worlds. The accuser initially won a $625.5 million ruling, but the decision was overturned in an Apple in 2011.
Amazing what kinds of things can happen in an apple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamC
It has nothing to do with Apple but more with Wall Street.
They are betting the bank against Apple to fail without Steve Jobs.
Everything idea of Apple is treated with disdain and every positive factor is cast in doubt and disbelief.
And nothing Apple do is good enough.
Yes Wall Street is trying very hard to fulfill their own prophecy and nothing else.
Yes they don't want to look like fools in the eyes of world with their negative outlook on Apple when proven wrong.
yes, because apple's stock being down today has nothing to do with the market as a whole. Apple is down a bit more than the rest of the market, but that could just mean that the big mutual funds (the biggest "owners" of most stock) held more apple shares than other companies. As they pull some of their assets from the market and put them into bonds and securities, it hurts the companies they invested in heavily in more than many others. With the current market volatility it's hard to say anything with just a days or weeks worth of results.
Phil
I wonder if it would make sense for Apple to buy back all stock and become a private company not traded on the stock market.
Forget the non-sense of the market and focus on making great products that millions of people want to buy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lilgto64
I wonder if it would make sense for Apple to buy back all stock and become a private company not traded on the stock market.
Forget the non-sense of the market and focus on making great products that millions of people want to buy.
Apple probably will take this occasion to buy back some stock at a favorable price. But that won't make the company closer to being privately owned, it will just (in the long term) increase the value of the remaining shares because each share will represent a slightly larger portion of the company's market cap.
Quote:
Originally posted by Jessi
"Patents are meaningless if they can't be sold or enforced."
Why would the inability to sell a patent render it "meaningless" ...?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessi
There is no such thing as a patent troll. Apple has a lot of patents that it is a "non-practicing entity" on. They are still valid patents.
Patents are meaningless if they can't be sold or enforced.
It's amazing how after google decides to rip off iOS, google funds a massive PR campaign against patents and suddenly everyone thinks its ok to rip others off (that is, until someone rips their stuff off, or makes something vaguely familiar.)
I have a couple patents. I've seen many articles claiming patents were obvious or bogus, and in every case the person writing the article didn't even read the patent.
For instance, Amazon's so-called "one click patent" doesn't cover buying a product with a single click.
It is deliberately called "one click patent" to make it seem like it's a trivial obvious thing, but it is not.
Those who oppose patents want Apple to be unable to defend itself when others steal its work.
Yes, there is such thing as a Patent Troll. Google it.
Yes, Amazon's "1-click patent" is a trivial obvious thing. I don't care what they did to implement it, there's nothing there that suggests "wow, having a customer's billing and shipping on file is a novel idea!"
But the patent is on the implementation thereof, not the idea itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
But the patent is on the implementation thereof, not the idea itself.
And maybe that's part of the problem.
The problem for Amazon was: "We store all the relevant customer information we need. How can we make it even easier for future purchases?" And then from there, it's a relatively straightforward programming exercise. How does become patentable?!
When Amazon announced this new feature, the world wasn't shocked at such a novel concept (it wasn't). Or that they implemented it, or any of that. The world was shocked that they had bothered to file a patent for such.
How aggressively does Google react when someone makes use of a Google patented feature or iteration without their permission? Out of the thousands of patents they own surely some search or ad delivery company has intruded on at least a couple of them in the past 15 years. It's not reasonable to think no one has. How long did it take Google to sue them?
The term exists but it is used almost exclusively by people who have no concept of how patents work.
Patents are property. That means that the owner has rights to use that property however they wish and to dispose of it as they wish. If they want to sell it, they can do so. If someone with no intention to practice it wants to buy it, they can do so. Neither action reduces the value.
The analogy I've provided repeatedly (but which has apparently failed to sink in) is this: You inherit a factory from your parents. The factory is set up to make widgets, but you don't want to make widgets. You also don't want to be in the real estate rental business, so you sell the factory to a real estate firm. That firm is looking for someone to rent the property, but has no intention of ever making widgets.
By the logic of those whining about 'patent trolls', anyone who wants to make widgets should be free to just break the locks on the doors, move into the factory and start making widgets since the owner has no intention of doing so. That's what they're advocating when it comes to patents, anyway.
There are all sorts of reasons why a patent owner would want to sell their patent to someone rather than using it themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
The term exists but it is used almost exclusively by people who have no concept of how patents work.
Patents are property. That means that the owner has rights to use that property however they wish and to dispose of it as they wish. If they want to sell it, they can do so. If someone with no intention to practice it wants to buy it, they can do so. Neither action reduces the value.
The analogy I've provided repeatedly (but which has apparently failed to sink in) is this: You inherit a factory from your parents. The factory is set up to make widgets, but you don't want to make widgets. You also don't want to be in the real estate rental business, so you sell the factory to a real estate firm. That firm is looking for someone to rent the property, but has no intention of ever making widgets.
By the logic of those whining about 'patent trolls', anyone who wants to make widgets should be free to just break the locks on the doors, move into the factory and start making widgets since the owner has no intention of doing so. That's what they're advocating when it comes to patents, anyway.
There are all sorts of reasons why a patent owner would want to sell their patent to someone rather than using it themselves.
heh, everyone "gets" the concept of the patent system. If you had a widget, it deserves to be protected under trademarks and patents (and yes, it can be sold).
What *you* seem to fail to understand is that there are leaches (Patent Trolls) that are exploiting weaknesses in the system for profit. They buy or create an overly broad conceptual description of something, patent the idea, then sue in east Texas. There is no intention of actually making a product based on the patent. These Patent Trolls are law firms that purchase these patents (usually from bankrupt companies) who focus solely on "enforcing their patent rights" (i.e. suing).
Need examples? How about the patent troll Lodsys, who's Patent 7,222,078 titled "Methods and Systems for Gathering Information from Units of a Commodity Across a Network". Pretty vague, eh? Kinda describes virtually anything and everything we do on the internet, no? Well, it's been used to sue everyone from General Motors, to Crocs, to a hotel chain, to virtually every tech company imaginable.
A kissing cousin on Patent Trolling is cybersquatting. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that either.
YOU may not see a problem with Patent Trolling. Fortunately, the government does, and looks like they may finally be taking action.