Still, the appleinsider article says that the case was brought in the Eastern District of Texas which is "notorious for catering to patent trolls." Yet, the case was settled the day before argument in the USCA for the Fed. Circuit which is the consolidated court of appeals for patent cases. That suggests to me that OPTI had a defensible case.
There is the broader question of whether our patent system is broken, but there's nothing that immediately stands out as egregious in this case based on the facts that i read here and in the Bloomberg article (vs. the inflammatory language used in the linked article and the subject of the OP).
This settlement was %.1 of Apple's Q4 revenue. Exercise: figure out what %.1 of your own top-line revenue is for Q4. Now, look at the number, disregard the percentage. How big a deal would that number be to you?
"It seems like each week we hear of another company that has decided to roll the dice in court to try to make a profit off of an idea, regardless of how obvious an idea it might be, because "they had it first." I'm no lawyer, and I don't even play one on TV, but it seems like this sort of thing was almost unheard of even a few years ago."
This makes me cringe when compared with the beginning of the article, "I have only a vague idea of what that even means." It's so damn obvious you can't even understand it!
Think maybe Apple will put some money towards fixing the patent system now? I keep waiting for the big names to really start pushing for reform, since they are only ever hurt by patents and never helped by them. At least, as far as I can tell.
Why should this company be any more of a patent troll than Apple, or any other of the companies that register trivial patents and then sue other companies?
Still, the appleinsider article says that the case was brought in the Eastern District of Texas which is "notorious for catering to patent trolls." Yet, the case was settled the day before argument in the USCA for the Fed. Circuit which is the consolidated court of appeals for patent cases. That suggests to me that OPTI had a defensible case.
There is the broader question of whether our patent system is broken, but there's nothing that immediately stands out as egregious in this case based on the facts that i read here and in the Bloomberg article (vs. the inflammatory language used in the linked article and the subject of the OP).