I’m holding judgement until the case is investigated further. It’s my understanding that so far everyone has basically said, “there’s enough evidence to proceed in court.”
Patent reform is something that is sorely needed (and more funding for the USPTO).
>> As a small shop, I am particularly afraid of trolls shutting us down overnight with basically no recourse.
I be more scared of non-trolls who own giant catalogues of patents. The giant companies will shut you down just as fast as any "troll". Try to invent any device with a touchscreen and an internet connection. It won't be trolls knocking on your door, but lawyers from Samsung, Apple and Microsoft.
Patents can't be circumvented with the "Chinese wall" idea that happens with copyright-based reverse engineering. There is no alternative to licensing if you want to use a technology.
Oh it’s for copyright only. So what legal standing does Apple have and why didn’t they just pay the licensing fee? Unless they wanted litigation to go after these type of patents being sealed off?
Apple can attack the patent as being invalid (and go for an IPR), they can argue that they are not infringing, or they can pay a license fee. My guess is that Apple was too cheap to pay an acceptable license fee, so they figured they could strongarm this company in court.
Don't play the game of building products that are subject to other people's patents. If in doubt, buy them out. Pay for the international rights regardless of whether you think a patent invalid in some market. Apple isn't exactly struggling for cash at the moment. It can afford to pay for the patent rather than stage what is starting to look like a PR event.
When has Apple ever sued over patent infringement? There was the Samsung case [1] but that was a design issue.
Apple, Google, Meta and other big tech companies have used patents defensively not offensively. That is, as mutually-assured destruction.
The real villains in this story are the patent holding companies that sue in East Texas to get in front of one judge that, at a time, heard a quarter of all US patent cases, all brought by NPEs (non-practicing entities aka patent trolls). IIRC there was at a time another judge and I heard a story that a popular law firm employed a relative to conflict out the second judge so they could get the judge they wanted.
Since the article is about patents I, too, limited the scope of my comments--quite deliberately--to patents so these are really out-of-scope. I mentioned Apple v. Samsung because of the confusing language ie "design patent".
The first case you mention is against third-party repair and parts. This isn't a simple issue. At one end of spectrum people have died from fake accessories (eg [1]). So while I trust (and use) Anker devices that are sold in the US, would I buy and use a charger in Cambodia? Probably not. So I support the idea of third-party repair but you have to deal with the question of quality and the parts being suitable.
The second relates to, again, design (and trademark). This is less defensible. I mean they do look like Airpods but really how many ways can you make an earpod?
Happened back in '11 when they were going after Android OEMs, despite the fact that the actual devices weren't infringing they still tried to get them blocked.
> Masimo CEO Joe Kiani told CNN he believes Apple deliberately infringed on his company’s patents. But the companies have been at loggerheads for years. In October 2022, Apple filed two patent infringement lawsuits against Masimo.
While not "sue-ing" but instead the other way - being trying to avoid paying for patented tech. They tried to stop paying licenses for their PowerVR-derived GPUs, which they were explicitly developed from so no "convergent evolution" excuses. Announcing it to the market then caused a massive abandonment of PowerVR and stock price drop, and purchase at fire sale prices by a Chinese "Strategic investment" group.
It never even made it to court - and they have since scrubbed all statements about that, and to this day still pay for the architecture license. Just too late for PowerVR as an independent IP vendor.
Never be a supplier to Apple - they will screw you over.
I might expand this to "Being a Tech supplier to Apple is a mistake" - they seem quite happy with exporting their labor-intensive costs, and whitewashing themselves of any "questionable" activities in the process.
TSMC is an interesting one, as they're pretty much the only person who have made that business model work, and even Apple's total business in that area is smaller than their scale seems to require.
That was, I believe, they judge they wanted to get in front of. At one point there was another judge in that district that they didn't want to get in front of and a law firm just so happened to employ the second judge's son (? IIRC).
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley didn't recuse herself from hearing the Microsoft-Activision FTC case just because her son works at Microsoft (and ruled in msfts favor!)
So are recusals for such conflicts really optional?
Patent reform is something that is sorely needed (and more funding for the USPTO).
Take for example this patent on an anti gravity device: https://www.nature.com/articles/438139a#:~:text=The%20US%20p....
And then there’s the patent troll problem. As a small shop, I am particularly afraid of trolls shutting us down overnight with basically no recourse.