loquitur

e39dinan said:

Guys, to set the record straight here are a few facts.

- VHC originally won $368 Million from Apple. Apple appealed on 3 levels (1. the patents are invalid. 2. we did not infringe 3. we don't think we owe that much). The court of appeals (CAFC) struck down Apple on #1 and #2 (the patents are valid, and Apple does infringe) and they kicked the monetary award (#3) back to court. Today's outcome was the result.

- VHC is comprised of the inventors of the patents while they worked at SAIC. This isn't some NPE that just bought someone else's patents that were lying around. The guys suing AAPL have their names on the actual patents. 

- Apple was found to wilfully infringe today. In other words, they knew they infringed and they kept doing it. 

Please educate yourselves before painting VirnetX as your typical money grubbing NPE. 

And remember: "Good artists copy, great artists steal" -Steve Jobs

Has this judgement gone thru "least salable unit" analysis, or an analysis of what percentage of an iPhone's value results from having this single feature, out of the hundreds of features and thousands of patents on iPhones, just by Apple?   In the industry, no party generally pays more than a few hundred million in cross-licensing fees to another, also holding hundreds of patents.   Witness Samsung, Ericsson, etc.   Also, what percentage of iPhone users even use FaceTime audio, either via the SAIC "stolen property" or the workaround?   Or the SAIC implementation going forward after *final* appeals, which may just hold the idea of VPN unpatentable?   Sorry, but the Supremes have already hinted that NPEs cannot just say that a company violated just one patent, so "give us X% (X huge) of your profits", even for a "chokehold" patent which this is not.

It's still a gimmick if in addition you have to scribble a signature, as in many cases (large grocery stores in S.F. Bay Area),
or otherwise retry the transaction again after it already says "done" because the taker didn't push the right button, etc.

Mr_Grey said:

foggyhill said:

The rise of 40% of the US dollar over 2 years.... That's one major obstacle to buying in many places.
It may lead to you're #1, but the main factor is that.
Others are not a factor directly.

Indeed.  A 16Gb iPhone (commonly referred to on this forum as "useless"), costs one thousand dollars in Canada.  The prices are set to go up soon as well. 

I still think that the answer (not that Apple will ever take it) is to reduce prices.  Apple still has the highest margins of all tech companies.  Their profit on each product has been variously estimated at two or three times the profit the other manufacturers make.  

There are only so many rich people in the world.  They should try making a phone for the "regular" person instead of just the rich, if they truly want to dominate the market.  They could also try to be better world citizens and stop raping their customers for cash.  

When i squint, I almost see that now - iPhone 6s 16GB $899.00,  iPhone 6s 64GB $1,029.00, but that's *Canadian* dollars (loonies & toonies), not US dollars!

At 1.00 Canadian dollar per 0.71 US, that's near-parity with US prices.  I.e. US $670 ($900 x .7) for 16GB, and $800 for the 64GB, not far from $649/$749 US,
but not a kilodollar in money from the States.  Otherwise, your latter points are well-taken by many.