“Apple is facing the first of what may be many lawsuits claiming infringement of patents pertaining to technology in its new iPhone,” Daniel Del’Re reports for TheStreet.com.
“SP Technologies of St. Petersburg, Fla., is calling for Apple to pay royalties for the ‘willful and deliberate’ infringement of a patent it says Apple used illegally for the iPhone’s keyboard,” Del’Re reports.
“If a judge or jury rules that a defendant willfully used someone else’s intellectual property, then the defendant may have to pay punitive damages equal to three times the economic loss that the plaintiff suffered,” Del’Re reports. “SP filed the suit in a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, which is considered to be sympathetic to plaintiffs in patent infringement cases.”
Del’Re reports, “Apple is a big target for patent suits given the technical complexity of its products and its deep financial reserves. Plaintiffs in cases like this often hope that the threat of an injunction and treble damages will compel a defendant to settle without a trial.”
More details in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bob R.” for the heads up.]
I wonder if that would work. ???
It’d work to make the lawyers involved even wealthier. Not sure how everybody else would fare.
One major of the patent system is to help a small relatively powerless individual who may not have the funds to immediately commercialize an idea protect himself against a corporation who just steals it.
It used to be that way.
Today, a patent is only as good as the lawyers and pockets behind it. Not to mention one has to be prepared to aggressively defend their ideas worldwide (blatant Chinese knock-offs come to mind). One had better know the international business waters.
Hey, we finally got loose from some old dusty film canister in Hollywood, and just found out Apple, along with a bunch of followers, have been using mice for their computers… (whatever those things are..) and since we (or at least me, Jerry) are the rightful owners of that which is us, we’re suing everybody (including the patent office for not warning us, and making us patent the mouse when we still had time…) for failure to make us filthy rich by using our image in vain…
Hold on there, Tomcat and Jerry!! I think me and minnie came first, so get the *$%@ outta the way – we got dibs on the lawsuit!
If I remember correctly, didn’t Jobs state something to the effect that Apple had their iPhone patents all squared away?
I don’t think Apple will settle and, if this goes to court, I think these bozos are in for a surprise.
This is why software patents are wrong and are stifling the tech industry and need to be abolished. You can’t create any piece of software these days, not even a web page, without being sued by a patent troll. How, exactly, is this good for the U.S. economy?
“One major of the patent system is to help a small relatively powerless individual who may not have the funds to immediately commercialize an idea protect himself against a corporation who just steals it.”
And how often is that the way software patents are used? I don’t see that happen, ever. It’s always big corporations that snap up all the obvious software patents and then sue the little guys who try to implement competing ideas.
Yes, suing over these obvious software patents is legal under our (broken) system, but that doesn’t mean that doing so is anything but frivolous.
Apple can’t settle this. It’s not only affecting their profits, but also their image as an innovative company.
What will their employees think about apple if it goes down to such a threat that the engineers deliberately stole ideas from a patent?
It’s currently not good for any one or the economy, because you’re rewarding doodlers rather than inventors.
I just applied for patents for the tricorder and the phaser. Man, in 200 years, I’m going to be making bank.
I also have patents on moving asteroids into permanent fall around planetary bodies, a slew of asteroid mining techniques, and methods for excavating habitats and ground water extraction caves on Mars. The future is mine, suckers.
“It sounds more like profit seekers than someone with an actual rights violation”
I am a proud Texan and am sorry to say that if a patent case take place in East Texas, then yeah, it’s for profit patent troll
As both an Apple product owner/user and an Apple shareholder I think I, and others like me, should be able to sue companies that file nuisance suits like this. This causes the cost of apple products to go up and loss of share value. Apple shares would likely be over $200 if it weren’t for all these “crap” law suites and a Mac’s price would easily drop by 10%. I want my MONEY!
“doesn’t mean that doing so is anything but frivolous.”
Frivolous has a distinct legal meaning, a lawsuit put forward when the case has no legal merit.
What you seem to be saying is that it has no merit to society, which is a different thing.
Here the case has legal merit because the person suing has a duly issued patent on the underlying technology.
You may think that’s bogus and bad, but the reality is that Apple can and likely will challenge the validity of the patent, and a court will decide who’s right and wrong.
Understanding patents is easy. They exist to protect Apple’s ideas and not the ideas of other companies.
When Apple is sued by another company for stealing that company’s ideas, that company is wrong.
When Apple sues a company for stealing Apple’s ideas, that company is wrong.
You see the simple rule? Apple is always right, other companies are always wrong.