

Apple faces $600m damages claim - theklub
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11475331

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jcromartie
It's unbelievable that a company that _doesn't even have a website_ can win a
suit like this.

For Apple to have caused "Mirror Worlds" any harm, they would have to be
competing with each other. For Mirror Worlds to compete with _ANYBODY_ , a
good start would be appearing to be a real business in any way shape or form.

Maybe I don't really understand patent law, but David Gelernter just sounds
like a total scumbag here. I've read some of his stuff before, and he seems
like a smart guy. What gives?

Edit: apparently this is Mirror Worlds' product website:
<http://www.scopeware.com/>

Nothing. Vaporware.

~~~
lkjuhygthyujk
I don't think you understand the difference between a patent troll and an IP
company.

The company I work for designs antennae for cell phones, wifi, GPS receivers
etc. We barely have a website, just a couple of PhDs and a lawyer. We rely on
licencing our designs and file a lot of patents. It's judgements like this
that stop cell phone makers deciding that it's cheaper to just copy our
inventions than pay us a licence fee.

The fine is supposed to be a dtterent - to say that it should be limited to
what the company was bought for is like saying the fine for murdering a child
should be limited to the hospital maternity bill.

~~~
unexpected
I don't even think you should receive a patent unless you intend to
commercialize it. In this system, you have incentives to make your patent as
broad as possible, as well as look for "me-too" patents that you can get by
studying existing ones.

If your sole source of revenue is licensing the patents that you've created,
you're a patent troll. The initial patent wasn't intended for this.

The patent wasn't originally intended for this. It was there to protect small
inventors as they brought their ideas commercial. When Edison brought is light
bulb to the market, only he could create light bulbs. This helped protect him
from larger, more established firms, from copying his design so he could get
his business bearings.

What you are doing is not that. You research some idea, patent it, then pocket
it away until it's handy for you. If you make no attempt to show your patents,
seek funding, or otherwise try to commercialize the idea, then you're a patent
troll.

~~~
IgorPartola
Are you telling me that if I come up with a way to build a cold fusion
reactor, start to finish, that is commercially viable but will cost me
$1,000,000,000,000 to build but can power the entire human civilization, my
only option is to either build it or forget it? That if I obtain a patent it
is somehow my obligation to actually make the damn thing?

Also, how do you propose the patent office make sure that I am actually going
to build something? Isn't the workflow "invent, patent, produce"? Or should I
alter that workflow and go with "invent, produce, patent"? If so what happens
to everyone that imitates me in the produce phase once I get my patent? Seems
to me I'd be much more of a troll then.

~~~
raganwald
_Are you telling me that if I come up with a way to build a cold fusion
reactor, start to finish, that is commercially viable but will cost me
$1,000,000,000,000 to build but can power the entire human civilization, my
only option is to either build it or forget it? That if I obtain a patent it
is somehow my obligation to actually make the damn thing?_

I have no idea what he(?) is telling you, but I'm telling you YES. The problem
here is that you couch it as coming up wit the whole thing from start to
finish. Think instead of how many hundreds or THOUSANDS of patents might cover
a commercially viable cold fusion reactor.

Imagine if NONE of the patent holders want to invest a few billion to build
it, they each wait around for some other sucker to invest a billion dollars
and then try to "extract value" with their patent trolling lawsuits.

Result? No cold fusion for humanity, because nobody wants to invest a billion
dollars building something that requires permission from hundreds or thousands
of venal "inventors."

It is obvious that we do not need patents to protect the creation of a billion
dollar reactor. The billion dollar cost to build one protects it. If you come
up with the idea, but you don't have a billion dollars, do what everyone else
is doing, go pitch it and raise money. If you don't have a billion dollars and
you can't convince anyone else to give you a billion dollars, why should you
get rich?

There is no moral imperative to reward inventors for pure thinking, and
furthermore there is NO evidence at the moment that patents serve as an
incentive to get smart people like you to invent cold fusion instead of making
money trading derivatives or playing professional poker.

~~~
phamilton
As much as I dislike facebook and Zuckerberg, I like his quote: "If you had
invented facebook, you would have invented facebook."

So you figured out how to build a cold fusion reactor. If you had done that
you would have built a cold fusion reactor.

If one looked only at sweat equity, I'd wager that the creation and invention
of the product in your average million-dollar-revenue company is dwarfed by
everything else that needs to be done.

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photon_off
I cannot fathom putting the decision of a patent dispute in the hands of my
"peers" -- 12 people that are chosen, likely with the prerequisite of not
knowing much at all about technology, whose opinions on the matter are going
to be molded by how well somebody pitches their argument, and not the contents
thereof.

~~~
statictype
So you're basically against the jury system in general - not just for patent
disputes, right?

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davidcann
Aren't the real issues obviousness and prior art? The interfaces for Cover
Flow and Time Machine are fun, but they hardly seem patent-worthy.

How could a jury of 12 non-technical people possibly be qualified to judge if
a patent is valid? I would not feel qualified to judge if an automotive patent
is valid, so how can a non-developer judge a software patent? The system is
broken.

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DougBTX
I'll never understand how these damages are calculated. Does anyone actually
believe that the patent owners would have made > $600m had Apple never written
the supposedly infringing software?

~~~
parenthesis
IANAL, but there is a distinction between _compensatory_ damages (which is
what you are talking about) and _punitive_ damages. I don't think the article
mentions which, or what combination, of these is being awarded here.

~~~
jessriedel
Incidentally, what is the theory behind awarding the punitive damages to the
plaintiff? I could understand giving the plaintiff a _fraction_ of the
punitive damages in order to provide an incentive to the plaintiff (and their
counsel) to pursue, but isn't it crazy to give them all of it? Should the
state keep it (like a ticket) or, better, use it where possible to compensate
the unknown victims that punitive damages are supposed to help protect?

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gruseom
I find it hard to believe that Gelernter's work played any role in the
creation of Apple's products. I've read some of his stuff (admittedly
unrelated) and the thing that leapt out at me was how hard it would be to _do_
anything with it. (Edit: frankly, I don't think it's all that hard to sit
around "inventing" things if all you have to do is write about them and never
back them up with real products. Research prototypes don't count, either.)

These judgments are really hard to stomach. Perhaps, though, if enough
powerful companies get hit with them, they'll lobby to stop the insanity.
That's how the legislative process works, isn't it?

~~~
jcl
Be careful of what you wish for, though. Powerful companies would most likely
lobby for changes to patent law that benefit powerful companies.

For example, they might lobby to require the invention be a "real product",
defined as N x 100,000 units or $N million dollars revenue. While that would
eliminate patent trolls, it would also destroy small companies and individual
inventors.

~~~
marknutter
Why exactly would that destroy small companies or individual inventors?

~~~
borism
because achieving 100k units or 1M in revenue in short period of time is
beyond their abilities, duh?

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MrMatt
OK, so I get that a patent allows an inventor to protect their invention from
exploitation, but I don't understand why a patent is transferrable - surely
the idea is to allow an inventor to license the patent so that even if they
couldn't realise a commercial product with their idea, they could allow others
to do so, and still get something in return.

I could sympathise if Mirror Worlds were the originators of the patent, but as
they bought it, then I get the impression that the whole thing stinks.

------
_emice
The article on Arstechnica noted at similarities between the infringement and
the functionality of HyperCard, which shipped on all Macs in 1987. Hypercard
used stacks of cards that had some shared some aspects with a group, but
individual cards could also have unique elements. These included text fields,
GUI elements and background images. I haven't looked at the patent, but owning
the ability to - display records/documents in a virtual pile, possibly in
chronological order, with the ability to scroll through them - sounds absurd
to me.

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/apple-loses-
patent...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/apple-loses-patent-
infringement-suit-over-cover-flow-display.ars)

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russell
Note that the suit was brought in east Texas which is a favorite haunt for
patent trolls. As far as I know the trolls always win and the awards have
become increasingly huge, way out of proportion to the actual value of the
work.

Gelernter himself is not a troll. If all this is based On Linda (I havent dug
deep enough), it would be based on work he did at least as far back as 1983.
Google "Gelernter Linda", He published a book "Mirror Worlds". which I read
decades ago. He tried to commercialize it, but had only modest, if any,
success. OTOH he sold his patents to a patent troll.

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tnorthcutt
_It added that the patents had been sold and any damages awarded should
reflect that market value. The patent package is believed to have been sold
for $5m._

If the patent package was recently sold, doesn't that do a pretty good job of
establishing the value of the patents, and thus, the appropriate judgment
against Apple?

~~~
lkjuhygthyujk
No it represents what a market maker thought the value of the patent was
multiplied by the chance of collecting on it.

What would the idea of the iPod have been worth in the 90s? The then value of
Apple's consumer electronics sales (ie 0) or the current and future value of
Apple?

~~~
gruseom
_What would the idea of the iPod have been worth in the 90s?_

Very little indeed.

