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Apple's newest courtroom foe is a patent-savvy university
Reuters ^ | Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:14am EDT | BY ANDREW CHUNG

Posted on 10/16/2015 5:37:44 PM PDT by Swordmaker

As a veteran of the global smart phone wars, Apple is used to courtroom battles with fierce competitors such as Samsung and Nokia.

This week, however, a federal jury returned a verdict against Apple in a lawsuit brought by a different kind of adversary: a public university.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's licensing arm, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, convinced a jury that Apple had infringed its patent for improving chip efficiency when the company incorporated the technology into some of its phones and tablets.

Research institutions and universities have not traditionally been major players in patent litigation, and even now schools still launch relatively few patent suits compared to private companies - about 40 to 50 cases per year, according to preliminary research by University of Alberta professor Tania Bubela.

But within that world, WARF has become an aggressive litigator. Since 2000, the foundation has filed 33 lawsuits against 31 different defendants, according to a Reuters analysis of federal court data maintained by RPX Corp, a patent risk management firm.

In the current case, WARF is claiming $400 million in damages from Apple. As the dispute over how much the iPhone maker owes is hashed out, critics are questioning whether schools receiving public money for research should be engaged in hostile patent litigation.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: apple; applepinglist; iphone; madison; uofwisconsin; wisconsin

1 posted on 10/16/2015 5:37:44 PM PDT by Swordmaker
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~; 1234; Abundy; Action-America; acoulterfan; AFreeBird; Airwinger; Aliska; altair; ...
Apple loses a patent infringement suit to a publicly funded University over a 17 year old predictive processor circuit used in almost all computer processors. . . University of Wisconsin/Madison demands $400,000,000 for the claimed infringement. — PING!


Apple loses patent infringement suit
Ping!

The Latest Apple/Mac/iOS Pings can be found by searching Keyword “ApplePingList” on Freerepublic’s Search.

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

2 posted on 10/16/2015 5:45:17 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: All
More from another article (excerpt only due to Reuters copyright restriction):


University cannot get triple damages in patent fight with Apple
NEW YORK | BY ANDREW CHUNG

Oct 16 The University of Wisconsin-Madison's patent licensing body will not be able to extract triple damages from Apple as a jury weighs how much the iPhone maker must pay for using its microchip technology without permission, a U.S. judge ruled on Thursday.

On Tuesday, a federal jury in Madison, Wisconsin said Apple Inc infringed a Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) patent which helps improve the performance of computer processors. The foundation is claiming approximately $400 million in damages.

With a verdict on damages that could come as early as today, U.S. District Judge William Conley said in his ruling that WARF could not prove that Apple infringed its patent willfully. It is a welcome development for Apple, which no longer risks having the damage award increased by up to three times, which is allowed in federal law for recklessly infringing a patent.

Apple raised a reasonable defense in the case, Conley said, and WARF "has failed to show by clear and convincing evidence that Apple acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted infringement of a valid patent."


3 posted on 10/16/2015 5:55:08 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Swordmaker
In the current case, WARF is claiming $400 million in damages from Apple. As the dispute over how much the iPhone maker owes is hashed out, critics are questioning whether schools receiving public money for research should be engaged in hostile patent litigation.

NO. And public money should not be doled out for research.

4 posted on 10/16/2015 5:56:08 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: Pontiac
NO. And public money should not be doled out for research.

Yet these patent also show a "public ownership" claim in the patent itself since the research and development was funded by grant money under contract. . . so how can the University claim patent infringement rights or even patent ownership and control of use? As far as I can see, they don't have a clear title.

5 posted on 10/16/2015 6:01:58 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Swordmaker

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) also Had the original patent for “warfarin,” the blood thinner.


6 posted on 10/16/2015 6:40:35 PM PDT by I-ambush (Don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning.)
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To: I-ambush
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) also Had the original patent for “warfarin,” the blood thinner.

Yup. . . you are right.

7 posted on 10/16/2015 7:00:00 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: I-ambush
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) also Had the original patent for “warfarin,” the blood thinner.

Oh, incidentally, as someone who works with medical professionals, it is incorrect to refer to Warfarin as a "blood thinner" as it doesn't thin the blood. It is an anti-coagulanting agent, preventing the blood from coagulating and blocking the flow from a wound or clotting in the blood streams where a blockage may occur. You could say it makes blood less "sticky," but not making the blood less viscous, or giving the blood more liquidity.

8 posted on 10/16/2015 7:44:57 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: All
The jury came back with their dollar penalty judgement:

Apple ordered to pay $234 million to university for infringing patent

Apple says they will appeal.

9 posted on 10/16/2015 10:43:58 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Swordmaker

Apple has billions stashed overseas that it does not want to pay US tax on. If it brings some home it can easily pay the few billion to settle this lawsuit/ Steve Jobs would have paid them off years ago/
Apple honchos are too busy planning and preparing thier floats for next springs rounds of gay pride parades


10 posted on 10/16/2015 10:57:09 PM PDT by dennisw (The first principle is to find out who you are then you can achieve anything -- Buddhist monk)
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To: dennisw
Apple has billions stashed overseas that it does not want to pay US tax on. If it brings some home it can easily pay the few billion to settle this lawsuit/ Steve Jobs would have paid them off years ago/ Apple honchos are too busy planning and preparing thier floats for next springs rounds of gay pride parades

More of your lies. Try reading the article before posting next time, Dennis.

First of all,the money "parked overseas" was earned overseas and all appropriate income, excise, sales, payroll, property, and belly button taxes have already been paid on that money in the jurisdictions and nations in which it was earned. The LIBERALS in the United States Government and the People's Republik of Californistan want to TAX it again as though that incom had been earned HERE, at a tax rate of 35% ! You've outed yourself once again as a LIBERAL taxaholic!

Secondly, had you bothered to read the article, which may be beyond your grade level for comprehension, the amount the jury awarded is not "the few billion" you claim need to settle this lawsuit, but only $234 million and change, less than a quarter billion. Exposing your propensity to to emulate Baron Munchausen's weakness for lack of veracity in everything you write. Keep going, you best him one of these days. You have a real talent for Apple prevarication.

11 posted on 10/16/2015 11:52:04 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Swordmaker

Apple has behaved disgracefully here. Pay up ya cheapskates!!!


12 posted on 10/17/2015 2:24:27 AM PDT by dennisw (The first principle is to find out who you are then you can achieve anything -- Buddhist monk)
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To: Swordmaker

I know, since I’m a physician. I’m just used to speaking with patients all day who refer to it as such.


13 posted on 10/17/2015 5:22:36 AM PDT by I-ambush (Don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning.)
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To: Swordmaker
Some legal experts have criticized lawsuits over patents developed with public funding. "Government funding is being used to go after some of our most innovative companies," said Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law. "Do we want taxpayer money to fund this behavior?”
Government-funded research is not something contemplated in the Constitution, which does speak - and only speaks - of
Article 1 Section 8.:
The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .
President Eisenhower’s famous “Military-Industrial Complex” speech addressed that issue:
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite. - Eisenhower’s Farewell Address
suit . . . over a 17 year old predictive processor circuit used in almost all computer processors
If it’s 17 years old, I take it that this is about “copyright” as opposed to “patent” infringement?

In any case, there would seem to be a “use it or lose it” aspect: after 17 years, is Apple the first and only infringer of this patent?? Or the only one to have trillion dollar pockets?


14 posted on 10/17/2015 7:54:41 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
If it’s 17 years old, I take it that this is about “copyright” as opposed to “patent” infringement?

In any case, there would seem to be a “use it or lose it” aspect: after 17 years, is Apple the first and only infringer of this patent?? Or the only one to have trillion dollar pockets?

No, it is a software patent. . . but as nearly as I can tell, it's a patent on an "abstract idea" of doing something, and then a patent on one way of doing that idea. WARF wants to extend that idea patent to ALL ways of accomplishing the abstract idea.

In 1996 the USPTO issued Final Computer Related Examination Guidelines stating that "A practical application of a computer-related invention is statutory subject matter. This requirement can be discerned from the variously phrased prohibitions against the patenting of abstract ideas, laws of nature or natural phenomena"

The WARF patent is of just one "practical application," and cannot be what they jury has construed it to be, a universal patent on the "Abstract Idea," of doing predictive parallel predictive processing in advance of need with a system of selecting the most likely useful results and discarding the least likely, and the judge should have issued a summary judgement based on the mere fact that there were hundreds of valid patents for similar practical applications of that abstract idea that did not use WARF's specific practical application. WARF, although early, was not even first to get one.

WARF has sued 33 companies before this but the others all settled out of court, including a $110 million settlement from Intel, because they actually used some of the WARF patent in their early Intel Processors however I cannot tell you which ones they were because they've been blacked out of the court documents, as were other Intel proprietary data. I suspect that they were early 32 bit multi-core processors. The court documents do show they stopped using the WARF patent in 2009, in favor of some of the other predictive patents of their own. . . more proof that Apple would not be using an antique such as WARF in modern A7, A8, A8X, and A9 64 bit multicore processors. . . because Apple applied for their own predictive systems using vector processing and priority starting in 2008 based on the same new technology that apparently Intel is probably using.

In any case, the US Patent and TradeMark Office found that, even though Apple cited the WARF held patent, only one out of the hundreds of prior art patents and literature listings preceding all of Apple's similar 36 predictive patents by Apple, including the new '647 patent.

Apple's patent was valid but the judge excluded it from Trial and excluded all 36 others, as well as every single patent in Apple's patent portfolio as "irrelevant" saying they would confuse the jury, allowing the only patent in-suit to be WARF's patent of an "idea". It is generally held in law that an "idea" cannot be patented, only specific implementations of ideas can be patented.

This lawsuit IS the only one listed in the Patent Events registered with the US Patent Office for this patent, because all of the 33 other lawsuits brought by WARF on this patent never made it to trial, being settled out of court, usually for small amounts under $10 million. The Intel settlement for $110 million was an aberration because it was allowed to be based on total product sales, rather than apportioned to value added by the patent. That was set to 3% of the total sales.

Those settlements WERE allowed by the Judge to be brought into the case over Apple's semi-objections because they had not been adjudicated, but merely settled, and a true test of the facts were never held. WARF tried to argue that the Intel settlement was an ongoing license but the Judge did rule it was a settlement lump sum payment for a PAST infringement license and WARF provided no testimony that Intel was paying any current license for the patent. Intel's company representative testified they had not been not using the WARF patent since 2009.

Lifetimes of Patents versus Copyrights:

US patents of the time (after 1995) this patent was granted were for a period of 20 years from filing date or 17 years from issue date, whichever is longer, there is no longer a renewal for 14 more. The WARF patent was applied for in 1997, and granted in 1998.

Copyrights are now life plus 70 years or 95 or 120 years beyond the death of the original copyright holder depending on the nature of the authorship.

15 posted on 10/17/2015 11:08:42 AM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: I-ambush
I know, since I’m a physician. I’m just used to speaking with patients all day who refer to it as such.

OK, you get a pass for common usage. I just try to correct people who think that when they get it, there blood is somehow "thinner". . . LOL! I ran into a woman who was wondering if using it would give her "skinny" blood and help her lose weight! Yes, she was an Obama voter. . .

16 posted on 10/17/2015 11:11:52 AM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: dennisw
Apple has behaved disgracefully here. Pay up ya cheapskates!!!

More lies from our resident prevaricator.

Apple has now 37 VALID patents to do the exact same thing as the one patent that WARF claims to own from 1998. Each and every one of Apple's patents refers to the prior art of the WARF patent, along with a couple of hundred OTHER valid patents that do the exact same thing as WARF's patent does that do not infringe on WARF's patent either! They were deemed valid by the same US PATENT and TRADEMARK OFFICE that granted WARF's patent, which was valid for what they patented. . . a specific implementation of an Abstract Idea. . . as are all the hundreds of other valid patents, including Apple's patents in the same area, implementations of the same ABSTRACT IDEA, the forward looking pre-processing of sub-routines in a inter-active predictive environment which constantly updates potential results as the main-program proceeds, discarding unlikely results and retaining likely results and recalculating new results based on progress in the main-program.

At the time of application by WARF for their patent, predictive forward looking parallel processing was a topic discussed in literature offering different means of attacking the problem and WARF's implementation was a compendium of several of those OBVIOUS ideas.

The ABSTRACT IDEA was not and is not patentable. . . but his jury is assuming that WARF got a patent on the ABSTRACT IDEA . . . and apparently is applying that as a test on all specific implementation applications. That is impermissible. . . but the WARF attorneys presented their case that way and the Magistrate Judge permitted it and actually expedited it by deliberately excluding expert testimony about all other patents in the same field for similar approaches that DID NOT INFRINGE WARF's patent. . . including Apple's own patents.

17 posted on 10/17/2015 11:23:59 AM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
...critics are questioning whether schools receiving public money for research should be engaged in hostile patent litigation.
Stickin' it to the man.


18 posted on 10/17/2015 11:58:33 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
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