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 - ofsuit . . . over a 17 year old predictive processor circuit used in almost all computer processorsPresident Eisenhower’s famous “Military-Industrial Complex” speech addressed that issue:
- 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 . . .
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
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.