
Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls - aquabeagle
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/02/22/apple-closing-stores-in-eastern-district-texas/
======
kevin_b_er
It seems quite reasonable for apple to avoid the renegade court. The court is
known to intentionally violate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to the
benefit of patent holders.[1] You must seek permission from the renegade judge
in order to file Summary Judgement. "A party may move for summary judgment"
They may not move for summary judgement, because the judge denies this in this
court. "The court should state on the record the reasons for granting or
denying the motion." The court does not, because the judge will deny
permission to file the motion that would have them explain why they are
denying a summary judgement motion. I consider their willful breaking of the
civil rules "prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of
the business of the courts". That is to say, I consider it judicial
misconduct. The court is corrupt and broken by patent greed. Apple is right to
avoid this den of misconduct.

[http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/cgi-
bin/view_document.cgi?docum...](http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/cgi-
bin/view_document.cgi?document=22071)
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-
trolls-g...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-go-
texas-its-not-bbq)

~~~
babypuncher
Maybe I'm just really dumb, but can't anyone sued in this court just appeal to
a higher court that isn't run by renegade turds?

~~~
ABCLAW
If you do not make an argument at first instance, you cannot appeal a
judgement on the ground that it was not considered.

So you're fighting in the lower court because you need to fight there.
Remember, it's the fight that costs money, so no matter what you're always on
the hook for something.

The question ends up being are you on the hook for the cost of the fight or
the cost of paying them off.

------
bluejekyll
Here's something I don't quite understand, and where some of this feels a
little hypocritical: Apple, the most valuable company in the world, could be
working to reform patent law in order to make this a non-issue. Everyone talks
about US politics as pay-to-play, it should be possible for Apple, Google, MS,
Amazon, etc., to lobby for Software Patents, for example, to be reclassified
as "math" and therefor not patentable. If they're actively doing that, then
I'm not aware of it. If US policy can be bought and sold as we are led to
believe (maybe this is actually a false premise) then you'd think the most
valuable companies in the world would be able to change it.

What this implies to me, is that they want the existing patent system to work
in their favor, i.e. to protect their monopolies against new competitors, but
they don't want to deal with the downside of the patent troll abuse.

Don't get me wrong, I'm aware of the documented corruption of the court in
Texas, and I think it's abhorrent, along with all the trolls, but this feels
like a situation where Apple wants it's cake and to eat it too. Shouldn't we
just do away with software patents all together and instead rely on copyright
law?

~~~
elefanten
1\. I think your assumption of pay-to-play is too strong. It's true to some
degree but it's not as simple as having the right budget. For one, there are
always factions working against you. There are always multiple jurisdictions
and branches to consider, with different incentives. Add currents of public
opinion and how they impact electoral and business interests on top of it
all... it's a complex puzzle. So even the biggest budget is no guarantee.

2\. Your broader point about Apple and patents presumes that all software
patents are always bad. That may be popular on HN, but I sincerely doubt it's
that black and white. Yes, patent trolling trivial components or processes
feels and probably is overtly 'wrong'. But there's a more nuanced debate about
creating the right incentives to do difficult intellectual work that benefits
everyone. There's probably a 'correct' granularity of patentable idea even in
software.

~~~
bluejekyll
1) agreed, though I would think that the combined companies could have larger
sway than others.

2) I mostly disagree. Where software is so specialized and valuable, I
anticipate that it would be held privately and not necessarily made public.
This seems to me to be better protected by copyright and not patent law.
IANAL, but copyright feels more appropriate, and while you might be right that
there is some majestic software that is so unique, but yet so easily
duplicated (without the source) that it deserves monopoly protection, I don't
believe that exists, but if there are some pure examples that can be held up,
I'd be happy to change my opinion.

A less aggressive option than getting rid of software patents entirely, might
be changing the way that we apply for them. What if the source code itself was
required to be submitted with the patent application, and not just the design.
Part of the reason patents exist is to encourage the disclosure of the design,
so that when the monopoly ends, society benefits from the advancement.

What if the patented software was always required to be open-sourced? Would
this be a means for easily fending off trolls? They'd have to show a working
program, for one thing (it's not clear to me that they do now), and failure to
do that could be an easy way to get a summary judgement against them.

~~~
elefanten
Fair points and I like your suggestions. Definitely no lawyer, but I see the
theoretical value in IP broadly. Whether patents and software are the right
configuration.. I hold very loose opinions there.

To bring it back to Apple, I have a hard time casting strong moral judgment on
their stance when they're not patent trolling others, even if they're not
leading the righteous revolution. Their Samsung lawsuit feels more along the
lines of what you describe in the copyright realm -- it's a defense of their
design / expression of the ideas.

------
_bxg1
I grew up in Plano; the Willow Bend location was the "main" one for my area.

I think this will sting. On a map it looks like the new location is trivially
close-by, but the Galleria is in "Dallas proper", as opposed to the other
locations which were deep in suburbia. In other words you have to brave Dallas
traffic across the urban sprawl to get to it. It's not a mall people in the
suburbs go to to just hang out; it's an outing. On top of that, Plano and
Frisco are both relatively wealthy areas with lots of people who really really
like their Apple devices.

Hopefully this is a wake-up call.

~~~
kodablah
True, the Galleria parking and 635 area are usually what turn people off (not
that Stonebriar and Willow Bend don't have their own problems these days).
There are no other upscale malls in the north Dallas region beyond those
three, I don't see Apple ending up in the lesser Grapevine Mills or Music City
(nee Vista Ridge) malls to serve the area assuming they are within the
boundary.

But in general, people in the metroplex don't rock the boat and aren't very
squeaky wheels. It may hurt a bit, but it won't change anything.

~~~
amyjess
> There are no other upscale malls in the north Dallas region beyond those
> three

Well, there's also NorthPark, but I believe that already has an Apple Store.

And I wouldn't really call Stonebriar "upscale". It's basically the only non-
upscale mall here that isn't dead or dying.

~~~
kodablah
> Well, there's also NorthPark

Not what I'd consider the north Dallas region. I mean "upscale" in mall-
relative terms which is basically just not dead or dying.

~~~
amyjess
Eh, anything that's north of Loop 12 and west of 75 (and east of some nebulous
line west of Inwood) is "North Dallas". NorthPark _barely_ qualifies, since
it's on the northwest corner of Loop 12 and 75.

But it's all moot because I checked, and Apple already has a store at
NorthPark.

------
univalent
Good, I hope this draws the attention of voters in the district.

My employer (very large) was sued twice in this court. Both times by trolls.
The lawyers basically described this judge as running a ‘cottage industry’ and
were unwilling to even set foot in that courtroom.

The patents the lawsuits were based on were insane. One of them was on any
image compression for medical images which was somehow granted in 2005 (that’s
another problem). There was reams of prior art but of course we settled. I was
very low on the totem pole of the company but it still pissed me off to no
end.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Good, I hope this draws the attention of voters in the district.

It's not an electoral district, but a judicial one, all of whose officials are
Presidential appointees, not locally elected. There's a tradition (weaker in
the last few decades, especially when the White House is in opposite hands
from the Senate seats in the state) of consultation with the Senators of the
state containing the district when appointing judges, but in large states
(where judicial districts aren't the whole state, as is the case here since
it's the Eastern District of Texas and not the [non-existent] plain unmodified
District of Texas) that still doesn't provide a special role for “voters of
the district” distinct from those of the whole containing state.

------
jmurzy
Having recently watched The Patent Scam, I wish more companies would follow
suit here and exit EDOT, maybe then people would wake up and demand that these
corrupt judges are removed from the bench!

edit: correction made per child comment.

~~~
repiret
Federal judges are appointed by the President and serve for life. There are
possibly corruption problems in the Eastern district of Texas, but the root
problems are the patent laws themselves, and its the elected members of
congress who can fix that.

~~~
paulgb
I'm curious about another root problem: why are corporate civil cases heard by
a jury in the first place? Never mind that juries are bound to be influenced
when billions of dollars are at stake[1], how about the fact that these cases
are both technically and legally complex?

I'm not an expert in this stuff but as far as I can tell the USA is unique in
allowing juries to hear this sort of trial, even among countries with a right
to jury in a criminal trial.

1\. E.g. the Samsung skating rink in front of the Marshall Texas courthouse

~~~
amanaplanacanal
It's the seventh amendment to the constitution.

Amendment 7 - Rights in Civil Cases In suits at common law, where the value in
controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any
court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law.

------
ironcan
Would such a move be enough to not be under the jurisdiction of the Eastern
District? Google doesn't have any store there yet that doesn't stop any patent
troll.

~~~
dublo7
Google's army of lawyers and cash reserves keeps patent trolls away. Pt try to
go after little and medium companies who don't have the time or resources to
fight back. It's way cheaper to write a check and make the problem go away,
rather than fight via expensive lawyers or getting audited before the
shakedown.

~~~
the_jeremy
One would assume this to also be the case for apple. I definitely would not
call them a "medium" company.

------
d--b
I don’t understand. Most firms that get sued in Texas for patent infringement
don’t have mortar and brick shops in Eastern Texas.

If it was that easy to avoid infringement lawsuits in Eastern Texas, Eastern
Texas would be completely deserted by tech companies, forcing the people there
to change their policy.

~~~
modeless
Until May 2017, having a physical presence was not a requirement for being
sued there. Now because of the Supreme Court ruling referenced in the article,
it is. Expect to see more businesses leaving the Eastern District of Texas,
and possibly avoiding incorporation in Texas as well since that would also
expose you.

------
bhartzer
The only thing that Apple is doing is getting out of Collin County, Texas--by
closing Plano and Frisco locations. If you look here:
[http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/?q=court-
locator](http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/?q=court-locator) you'll see that Collin
County is in Eastern District of Texas.

So technically speaking, moving out of Plano and Frisco and moving to Dallas
County will solve their patent troll issue.

~~~
tyingq
Plano and Frisco are affluent suburbs though, probably pretty heavily iPhone
fans. The local community won't be happy. Traffic is pretty bad, and DFW is
sprawling. If I were Apple, I'd make some effort to communicate the reasons to
the locals.

~~~
bhartzer
Yes, definitely lots of Apple users in Collin County, and the Willow Bend
store and Frisco stores were always packed. Galleria location isn't that far
from Plano or Frisco, so I'm sure it won't be a problem. Most probably work in
the North Dallas area anyway.

------
iakh
I couldn't figure out if the first part of the title had anything to do with
the latter part of the title. Is Apple closing down its stores because of the
recent ruling or was that completely unrelated to why Apple is closing down
those stores?

~~~
modeless
Due to a recent (2017) Supreme Court decision, you can now only file patent
suits in a company's home state or in a district where they have a physical
presence. So now companies can simply leave the Eastern District of Texas to
stop patent trolls from suing them there.

Expect to see more companies leaving the Eastern District of Texas.

~~~
munk-a
This is awesome. Let us see how the economy of districts that offer
environments favorable to patent trolls fare.

------
deeg
What's the incentive for Eastern District to be so conducive to patent trolls?
Is it otherwise too small to support the judges and staff?

~~~
quest88
Well, IMO, it's very easy to look good in the local community. For example,
[http://www.personalweb.com/](http://www.personalweb.com/) opened up shop when
I was attending school there. They hired (as part-time interns) a bunch of
local college students and built the bare minimum. They had small parties and
showed up at a lot of community events.

They came to my uni to give a presentation to scout for interns. I asked them
why they chose their location next to the court house, and they replied
because of the patents they had they thought they would be at the courthouse
often :).

------
mindfulplay
Nice now the judges and their sons who got bug fat checks have to face the
truth finally: that they might have all the money but they still live in
Eastern District of Texas that won't have an Apple store for them to spend
their cash on.

------
shmerl
Apple are quite infamous as patent aggressors themselves, attacking others
even on completely trivial issues that have prior art, so they don't look like
a good fit for anti-patent troll hero.

------
duxup
I thought you could file in that district if you just proved there was a
customer there who bought something, even online.

------
bigtex
The Plano store was the first one in Texas and 3rd one overall.

------
untog
A powerful move would be for Apple to continue renting the space, but close
the store and place posters in the windows explaining exactly why they've
left, and why things needs to change. Might light a fire under local
politicians.

~~~
riffic
Starting a war against the judiciary doesn't seem like something the corporate
lawyers are going to greenlight.

~~~
CamperBob2
Congress is theoretically supposed to act as a check on the judiciary, at
least to the extent they appoint the judges in the first place. It's
reasonable to encourage the constituents to provide feedback to their
legislators.

------
denart2203
Well, the eastern district of texas gets their just desserts for making it so
easy for patent trolls to file there... GG.

~~~
unexpected
It's just as easy to file in other districts as the Eastern District. Trolls
like the Eastern District because of the judges currently sitting on the
Eastern District, as well as the caliber of juries in the Tyler area. They're
not super educated, easy to manipulate, and have a "well, they wouldn't have
filed if they didn't do something wrong" attitude.

------
NotAFed
This idiotic court must hate money, because I now have absolutely no reason to
visit Frisco or spend money there lol.

------
kdot
I suspect this has more to do with the foot traffic at these two locations.

------
phire
I suspect this won't actually prevent lawsuits in the Eastern district.

With internet shopping and the new store just across the district line,
lawyers should be able to argue that Apple is indeed doing business in the
region. It will just waste a bit of lawyer time.

It almost feels like Apple is punishing the region for it's patent troll
supporting ways.

~~~
IOT_Apprentice
Should they not punish the region? The Eastern district is corrupt.

~~~
otterley
I can't see how it makes sense to punish the customers for the behavior of a
Federal district judge who isn't elected by them. (The President appoints
Federal judges and the Senate confirms them.)

~~~
thorwasdfasdf
At least it draws attention to the matter which helps in the long run. You
need awareness of the issue, for it to make it into the public debate. Right
now, most voting people don't understand the evils of patent trolling.

~~~
tfandango
And they are opening a new store very close to the existing stores, just out
of the district. So people will only have 1 store to go to, but it will be
pretty close. I too think this may draw some attention from people who live
there who may demand a change. I'd bet that most people would care more about
a convenient Apple store over some corrupt lawyers and judges making a money
grab.

------
kevin_thibedeau
This looks like some heavy spin. The only reason why those stores were there
was to put a positive spin on Apple in the minds of potential jurors. Same as
the Samsung ice rink. The stores don't have a purpose now that reforms have
been put in place to inhibit shopping for favorable courts.

~~~
kodablah
> The only reason why those stores were there was to put a positive spin on
> Apple in the minds of potential jurors

The article may not make it clear, but the malls where the stores are closing
are hours (~2h45m or ~170 mi) away from the town (Marshall) where potential
jurors reside.

------
tooltalk
looks like Apple is shopping around.

I guess we are going to see more cases landing on the desk of Judge Lucy Koh
in the Northern District. Koh is obviously known for her landmark decisions in
Apple vs Samsung and other cases that overtly favored Apple. Samsung, for
instance, despite having won a ITC case and a SCOTUS decision on limiting
damage on design infringement, saw their ITC victory reversed/pardoned by
Obama and Apple's hometown jury rewarding almost everything Apple had asked
for.

Legal observers see it's no coincidence that the FTC filed their on-going
antitrust case against Qualcomm in Koh's court, in Apple's front yard.

~~~
macintux
The litigants decide where to file suit. Apple can't shop for courts when
they're the defendant, except in this case by specifically avoiding the
jurisdiction of one court that's a dramatic outlier.

~~~
tooltalk
Actually, while it's not common, a change in legal venue is perfectly legal
and Apple knows how to play the game (see Google vs Rockstar, which, once upon
a time, was Apple's patent trolling operation in the Eastern District of
Texas).

------
vfclists
The rich irony of a company that patented round corners taking the high moral
ground against patent "trolls" or whatever their called

~~~
sonnyblarney
Most patents filed big by corps are protective in nature.

It would be hard for Apple to sue people for 'round corners' \- but it gives
them a moat to protect themselves from trolls who patent 'round corners'.

But it does cause problems, because it causes hesitancy in other companies,
i.e. 'swipe to unlock' patents etc..

~~~
tooltalk
We are not talking about "most" sane, reasonable companies like Google,
Samsung, etc. Apple is historically known for being litigatious, in addition
to being the most litigated today:

[https://www.pcworld.com/article/262202/apple_vs_a_pl_tech_co...](https://www.pcworld.com/article/262202/apple_vs_a_pl_tech_company_sues_online_polish_grocer_over_logo.html)

~~~
lostlogin
What is a ‘reasonable’ company? The chairman and heir of Samsung went to
prison for corruption.
[https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/201...](https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/25/samsung-
heir-lee-jae-yong-found-guilty-of-corruption)

~~~
tooltalk
two things:

First, that's the cost of doing business in less politically developed
countries like South Korea. Google withdrew from China for not wanting to
stoop to the oppressive, corrupt gov't; Apple on the other hand outsourced all
data collection to a domestic Chinese company to continue business there.
Samsung unfortunately doesn't have the luxury to leave South Korea. You don't
hear Samsung exec's getting convicted of bribery in the US, do you?

Second, lookie here, a red herring! We are discussing what to expect from most
sane big "reasonable" companies with respect to their IP, not the recent
political corruption scandal, or the messy ouster of President Park, in South
Korea.

