Apple calls $506M WARF patent ruling 'fraught with error' in start of appeal
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.
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
No evidence but I'd certainly be asking for a change of venue. IANAL etc so the above can be ignored.
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.