Former Apple engineer claims idea for Qualcomm patent, does not seek inventor status
Former Apple engineer Arjuna Siva testified on Monday in the ongoing Qualcomm v. Apple patent trial, saying he came up with the idea for a Qualcomm patent-in-suit.
Siva described a system boot-related patent as "my idea," according to CNET. The engineer, now an employee of Google, added that he was "surprised" and "upset" when he learned Qualcomm had filed a patent application based on his input.
Apple argues that Siva should be named a co-inventor of U.S. Patent No. 8,838,949. Following Siva's testimony, lawyers for the company called U.C. San Diego professor Bill Lin to the stand, who backed that position.
Siva was a reluctant witness for the defense. On Thursday he suddenly dropped out of Apple's lineup, which prompted a war of words with Qualcomm. One Apple lawyer accused Qualcomm of witness tampering, even claiming she wouldn't try to bring Siva back since he was a "tainted witness." That angered the lead attorney for Qualcomm, who called the accusation a "personal attack."
Apple quickly backtracked, though, subpoenaing Siva to share testimony in court.
Asked why he remembers dealings dating back to 2010, when Apple was working with Qualcomm to bring the company's modems to iPhone, Siva said he was "proud" that his idea made it into a shipping product.
"It's something I really remember, and look back with fondness," Siva said. "I was a kid two and a half years out of college. I thought it was a pretty big deal for me."
All three patents in the case are power-related, the other two involving graphics processing and transferring data between a CPU and a modem.
Qualcomm is seeking about $31 million in damages, based on a fee of $1.40 per infringing device. Specifically the chipmaker is targeting iPhones with Intel modems -- Apple began migrating away from Qualcomm once an exclusivity deal ended in 2016.
A pro-Qualcomm ruling could impact other ongoing cases, such as the lawsuit Apple launched in January 2017, finally set to go to trial next month. Apple accused Qualcomm of withholding nearly $1 billion in rebates as retaliation for cooperating with antitrust investigators, and decried its business practices in general. The chipmaker is known to pressure parts buyers into signing patent licenses at the same time.
That was just the beginning of a range of suits and countersuits, as well as government investigations of Qualcomm, in some cases resulting in millions of dollars in fines. A trial brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission with Apple's help concluded in January, though a verdict has yet to be published.
Siva described a system boot-related patent as "my idea," according to CNET. The engineer, now an employee of Google, added that he was "surprised" and "upset" when he learned Qualcomm had filed a patent application based on his input.
Apple argues that Siva should be named a co-inventor of U.S. Patent No. 8,838,949. Following Siva's testimony, lawyers for the company called U.C. San Diego professor Bill Lin to the stand, who backed that position.
Siva was a reluctant witness for the defense. On Thursday he suddenly dropped out of Apple's lineup, which prompted a war of words with Qualcomm. One Apple lawyer accused Qualcomm of witness tampering, even claiming she wouldn't try to bring Siva back since he was a "tainted witness." That angered the lead attorney for Qualcomm, who called the accusation a "personal attack."
Apple quickly backtracked, though, subpoenaing Siva to share testimony in court.
Asked why he remembers dealings dating back to 2010, when Apple was working with Qualcomm to bring the company's modems to iPhone, Siva said he was "proud" that his idea made it into a shipping product.
"It's something I really remember, and look back with fondness," Siva said. "I was a kid two and a half years out of college. I thought it was a pretty big deal for me."
All three patents in the case are power-related, the other two involving graphics processing and transferring data between a CPU and a modem.
Qualcomm is seeking about $31 million in damages, based on a fee of $1.40 per infringing device. Specifically the chipmaker is targeting iPhones with Intel modems -- Apple began migrating away from Qualcomm once an exclusivity deal ended in 2016.
A pro-Qualcomm ruling could impact other ongoing cases, such as the lawsuit Apple launched in January 2017, finally set to go to trial next month. Apple accused Qualcomm of withholding nearly $1 billion in rebates as retaliation for cooperating with antitrust investigators, and decried its business practices in general. The chipmaker is known to pressure parts buyers into signing patent licenses at the same time.
That was just the beginning of a range of suits and countersuits, as well as government investigations of Qualcomm, in some cases resulting in millions of dollars in fines. A trial brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission with Apple's help concluded in January, though a verdict has yet to be published.
Comments
I hope Silva's testimony changes the balance in Apple's favour because this would show that Qualcomm has played dirty, stealing ideas and taking credit for them.
That said Qualcomm has already been shown being dirty AF. They’re trying to make a boat load off the iPhone even though they contributed very little to it, and what they contributed was for the purposes of Apple being able to use their chipsets. Which Apple was happy to do until Qualcomm wanted to charge them not based on the Qualcomm hardware in the phone but based on how much the end product cost.
FWIW Apple has never paid royalties at the same high percentage of the device cost as some other licensees have. Because they're Apple and have such a volume they've negotiated reduced royalty rates compared to some of the smaller OEM rivals who didn't have the same bargaining power.
Personally I think the driver now is that Apple want's to dump both QC and Intel to produce their own chips (and soon) so IP licensing sans chip purchases now becomes a much bigger business priority.
Assuming his claims hold up, I can't wait for Apple to call the guy who's name is on the "stolen" patent to the stand.
https://www.nutter.com/ip-law-bulletin/its-never-too-late-to-file-an-inventorship-dispute
The timing of this lawsuit, the big push for 5G when clearly, the carriers aren’t ready, the intimidation to the Android manufacturers like Samsung who had made its own chipset that outperformed QCs but never allowed to sell it here (wonder why). Now for some strange reason QC’s chipset is faster than Exynos.
My take is Apple is the last holdout that they are trying to crush. Even though other manufacturers sided with Apple about abuse by QC, none of them have the balls to take them on, except Apple.
You cannot patent an idea. You can only patent the way in which the idea is implemented.
Unless the star witness detailed his "idea" step by step and documented it, neither him nor Apple can claim to have any patent right in it.
This is Intellectual Property 101.
MC
AppleFanBoy
Now, the burden of proof is more probable than not — that’s all. Not beyond reasonable doubt, or clear and convincing.
Moreover, if Qualcomm does not counter this testimony, the jury must take the testimony as having been proved as true, without further evidence to support it.
That is all the proof necessary. No “hard” evidence is required for something to be proved. It depends on the weight of evidence. More evidence would be required if Qualcomm disputes the testimony.
As a long-time engineer I would assume he knows the difference.
But patents are, essentially, ideas. How specific they need to be when it comes to how the invention works depends in part on the nature of the invention. At core a patent protects the combination of elements (which may be many or few) which are specified in the patent claims.
In this case Apple asserted that Mr. Siva conceived of specific elements (which Apple specifically referred to) of the asserted patent claims. If that's true, then he likely is rightfully the inventor or a joint inventor.
Being an engineer doesn't mean that someone understands patent law. Surely some do, but surely many don't.
At any rate, I'm sure Mr. Siva wasn't called as an expert witness (regarding his inventorship of the patent in question). He was called as a fact witness, in order to provide testimony as to what happened rather than what it means legally. Others will testify as experts (and this article suggests someone already has testified as such) on the issue of his inventorship.
As it is, the presumption is that he isn't an inventor with regard to the patent in question. The burden is on Apple to demonstrate that he is. But his own belief on that issue isn't (or shouldn't be) what's important. He's surely not being offered as an expert on inventorship.
The issue of inventorship can be tricky to sort out. Having done a lot of work on an invention, or a patent application, doesn't make one an inventor. But, at the same time, a simple, casual - happened in an instant - contribution can make one an inventor. It's about conception. Did you conceive the invention? That doesn't mean... did you figure out every aspect of it, or how to put it in practice, or how to describe it for patent application purposes. And, of course, patented inventions can have many aspects to them - i.e., many elements to the claims. So one doesn't have to conceive of every element of a claim to rightfully be an inventor. It's more like... did you conceive of any of the novel and non-obvious elements?