Tyler Texas Federal District Court House—The Rocket Docket
Posted on 02/28/2015 12:56:07 AM PST by Swordmaker
One of its mistakes was to make a fuss about Patrick Racz’ education in front of a Texas jury.
Apple rarely comments on legal matters, and when it does it chooses its words carefully. So I read with interest the statement it issued after it was ordered to pay $532.9 million to Smartflash LLC for willful infringement of three U.S. patents. It’s a classic of the genre:
Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no U.S. presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented. We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system. We rely on the patent system to protect real innovation and this case is one more example of why we feel so strongly Congress should enact meaningful patent reform.”
You don’t have to love the U.S. patent system or non-practicing entities (A.K.A. patent trolls) to wonder: How the hell did Apple lose this case?
It’s a question that took on new urgency when Smartflash turned around two days later and sued Apple a second time, this time for infringement of four new patents.
I wasn’t able to reach Apple’s attorneys, but I did have a chat with Brad Caldwell, the Dallas-based patent infringement specialist who represented Smartflash. He tells a curious story.
“I think the reason we won,” he says, “is because we focused on the questions that were going to be presented to the jury: Were the patents valid? Did Apple infringe? Was the infringement willful?”
Apple, according to Caldwell, focused on everything but the issue at hand: Three digital rights management patents granted Patrick Racz and others between 2008 and 2012.
Apple, he says, “paraded witness after witness through courtroom who couldn’t be bothered to read the patents.”
I haven’t seen the full transcript of the six-day trial, but I’ve read enough to get a feel for what Caldwell is talking about.
When Apple’s lawyers got Racz on the stand they brought up his education (he left school at 8th grade), his horticultural training, the fact that he was from a farming family on the Isle of Jersey. They asked him, according to Caldwell: “Did you invent the Internet?” “Did you invent touch screen technology?”
Racz, of course, had not.
By contrast, Augustin Farrugia, Apple’s director of security and its key witness, had previously designed the national banking system for Singapore. On the stand he said he too hadn’t gotten around to reading Racz’ patents.
“They thumbed their nose at other people,” says Caldwell. “They acted like we’re Apple and have no need to respect other people’s intellectual property.”
The jury, I’m told, was paying close attention. They took notes. They deliberated for eight hours. They found for the plaintiff.
I don’t know whether Apple copied Racz intellectual property or even knew of its existence. I don’t know that it’s worth half a billion dollar. I don’t know where Racz got the technical chops to file these patents, and I’m certainly not qualified to say whether U.S. Patent Office should have granted them.
But I think I know now how Apple lost the case.
Apple is the evil empire now, how ironic!
It is. This was an eminently winnable case. The patents as you can see from the diagram of their "invention" is bogus. But the arrogance of the attorney caused the jury to want to slap HIM down, so they are punishing Apple for hiring him. He forgot the most important thing in any lawsuit. Prove your case TO THE JURY. . . Don't demean them or the plaintiffs. Prove the case. Don't use ad hominem arguments. He was an idiot.
The award will get reduced to almost nothing on appeal.
Apple has to be rotten, someone took one bite and discarded it as rotten!
“Apple: you may find better, but you’ll never pay more.”
I'll guess that is common practice for all patent lawsuits.
If you admit you read the patents, the plaintiff will claim that's how you got the idea for your technology.
Har, it was sold to the jury the same way net neutrality was sold to the millennials. But to win half a bil and turn around and immediately do it AGAIN shows the mentality of a government-educated moron level bureaucrat! Hubris, without the bris!
Apple’s legal team graduated from the Nancy Pelosi School of Law: “We’ll have to lose the case to know what’s in the patent.”
That stupid cartoon is nothing. There is no invention there. I don’t care how much I disliked the atty’s attitude I would be damned before I’d award anyone anything for scrawling some BS on a scrap of paper.
And you are able to tell that from one exhibit out of hundreds?
There wouldn’t be this problem if the bodies of these patent trolls were found, but with the heads of their attorneys on the shoulders — no one would look very hard for the attorneys’ bodies anyway, on a good day.
And you are able to tell that from one exhibit out of hundreds?
That and the fact that the story describes nothing that hasn’t been up and functioning since long before 1998. I see no invention here worthy of the name.
You've got that one totally wrong. It shows the mentality of a rich attorney.
I love Apple’s technology. I hate corporate bullies. I hate trolls. I hate lawyers. Not sure if there is anyone to cheer for in this case. (Not saying that Apple is bullying or the plaintiff is a patent troll, but if either is true, I’m not on their side.)
Nor am I. It's notable though, that I have seen no indication that Apple is attempting to prove the patent is invalid (in spite of all of those in this thread that claim it is invalid). That says to me that Apple might think they would have a hard time claiming invalidity.
That might also explain why they used the stupid tactic of ridiculing the plaintiff rather than arguing the case on its merits. Perhaps it was because they had no case to argue on the merits. Maybe ridicule was their best shot.
Or just SOP.
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