

Apple ordered to pay $533M for patent infringement - paralelogram
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/25/us-ip-apple-verdict-idUSKBN0LT0E720150225

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nakedrobot2
Besides the fact the behemoths of corporate lobbying will prevent it, is there
any reason to keep patents valid for 20 years, as they were 100 years ago?
Shouldn't they be limited to, say, 3 or 5 years?

I think that would go a very long way to solving this horrendous mess that is
the patent system.

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rtpg
3 years is not enough time to commercialise in a lot of industries. Maybe
would make sense in software, though software patents are silly to begin with

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spacemanmatt
Software patents are specifically prohibited, too: Abstract subjects are not
patent-eligible.

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mdemare
How is it news when the country's most infamous court awards damages to patent
trolls? They always do that, and then the defendant always appeals. Boring.
Predictable. Not News.

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tzs
Defendants win about as often as plaintiffs do in the Eastern District of
Texas. They are about equal both for wins by summary judgement and for wins by
jury verdict.

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huxley
After several of its most plaintiff-friendly judges retired. The district
still has a disproportionate rate of out-of-court settlements in the country;

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tzs
> After several of its most plaintiff-friendly judges retired.

Got a cite for that? Defendants have been winning as much on average as
plaintiffs since around 2006 or so, which is well before the retirements.
There is considerable year to year variation, of course. Defendants did
particularly well in 2013 in jury verdicts, for example, but then plaintiffs
did well in 2014 so that they were in balance for the two years.

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GordonS
The article doesn't actually mention any details of the patents, or patent
numbers. Anyone know what they relate to?

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kamilner
I found a list at [http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-
apple/2013/05/apples-i...](http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-
apple/2013/05/apples-itunes-store-allegedly-infringes-several-smartflash-
patents.html)

"Smartflash's lawsuit filing includes the following list of patents that
they're claiming Apple has infringed upon: 7,334,720, 7,942,317, 8,033,458,
8,061,598, 8,118,221 and 8,336,772. All of the patents are respectively
entitled "Data Storage and Access Systems.""

