[throwaway_tech]

>Did CalTech's filing of this patent help Apple or Broadcom's engineers create their devices?

No but Apple's patent for rounded corners didn't help Samsung engineers from creating their devices...and yet Apple filed the patent and sued Samsung for patent infringement.

Caltech should be championed for trolling a troll.

[nodamage]

> No but Apple's patent for rounded corners didn't help Samsung engineers from creating their devices...and yet Apple filed the patent and sued Samsung for patent infringement.

It's unfortunate that this story has now been twisted into "Apple suing Samsung over rounded corners", when in actuality Samsung deliberately produced a 132-page report comparing the iPhone to their current phones at the time and pointed out hundreds of features and design elements they should steal from the iPhone user interface.

https://archive.org/details/436142-samsung-relative-evaluati...

If you read through the report it's pretty blatant and goes well beyond "rounded corners".

[throwaway_tech]

>Samsung deliberately produced a 132-page report comparing the iPhone to their current phones at the time and pointed out hundreds of features and design elements they should steal from the iPhone user interface

But that doesn't really matter, you can adopt concepts and designs from 3rd parties (including competitors) so long as the same is not protected.

The "rounded corners" was patented and infringement of the patent was a count on the lawsuit, and Samsung was found liable for infringing that patent.

What is unfortunate and "twisted" is claiming a research university is a patent troll. Research universities develop and patent new technology all the time, you could say its part of their business model, and historically they are happy to license their patents to commercial entities to take to market...very rarely do universities actually develop their new inventions for commercial purposes. Most would consider it a win-win to shift costs of development to universities, not universities being patent trolls.

[nodamage]

> But that doesn't really matter, you can adopt concepts and designs from 3rd parties (including competitors) so long as the same is not protected.

Maybe it's legal but I don't think it's ethical. And while implementing someone else's concept in your own way is one thing, point for point copying of a user interface that someone else designed is entirely another.

> What is unfortunate and "twisted" is claiming a research university is a patent troll.

I never claimed this.

[mcphage]

> Apple's patent for rounded corners didn't help Samsung engineers from creating their devices

Yes, the time and money Apple spent designing their devices saved Samsung quite a lot of money and effort when they had to design their own.

[coldpie]

If Caltech ever framed their lawsuit in those terms, I would agree with you. I doubt they have. Caltech clearly has a history of patent trolling.

https://www.law360.com/articles/652442/dish-hughes-escape-so...

https://www.reuters.com/article/intuitivesurgical-lawsuit-id...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/sony-settles-digital-camera-la...

[dgacmu]

You don't seem to use the common definition of a patent troll. Caltech very clearly is in the business of inventing real, new technology. You can disagree with their filing of infringement lawsuits, but they're not a troll in the way the typical NPE is.

[loeg]

I think you can be a "real" inventor in the sense that NPEs are not and still be in violation of the nominal intent of the patent system. Caltech is here. You can call that trolling or not; OP never claimed that Caltech was literally an NPE. It's absurd that parallel invention of similar techniques, without awareness or observation of the filed patent — which USPTO often grants for extremely trivial software constructions — puts you in violation.

It's especially absurd that 4x damages were awarded against Apple here when Apple is just a customer of the allegedly infringing party. 4/5 of Broadcom's customers were not assessed damages — why pick on Apple in particular? (I mean, we all know why — they have cash.)

[exjdjeejfh]

It sounds to me like you're the one purposely changing the definition to discredit them. It's obvious from social cues that they're not using a strict legal definition.

[dgacmu]

I'm not trying to discredit them at all. I think the question of patents and trolls is a very important one. It's worth making sure we are not confusing the seriously awful behavior of patent trolls _exploiting_ the system with the intended functioning of the system.

(We can have a rousing debate about whether the intended functioning is something we think is societally advantageous or not, but the changes to that are different than the fixes we need to prevent patent trolls from causing so much harm.)

[travisporter]

Aren’t most patent lawsuits settled? I’m sure similar sized institutions have also settled patents. It may be normal