Apple ordered to pay $533M for patent infringement | Hacker News Reader

Apple ordered to pay $533M for patent infringement

reuters.com

31 pointsparalelogram11 comments

Besides the fact the behemoths of corporate lobbying will prevent it, is there any reason to keep patents valid for 20 years, as they were 100 years ago? Shouldn't they be limited to, say, 3 or 5 years?

I think that would go a very long way to solving this horrendous mess that is the patent system.

3 years is not enough time to commercialise in a lot of industries. Maybe would make sense in software, though software patents are silly to begin with

Software patents are specifically prohibited, too: Abstract subjects are not patent-eligible.

Fine. 5 years then...? 20 years is insane in these times.

How is it news when the country's most infamous court awards damages to patent trolls? They always do that, and then the defendant always appeals. Boring. Predictable. Not News.

This would be clickbait:

Shocking/appalling/hyped up title + otherwise boring or non-news article = clicks and ad money

Defendants win about as often as plaintiffs do in the Eastern District of Texas. They are about equal both for wins by summary judgement and for wins by jury verdict.

After several of its most plaintiff-friendly judges retired. The district still has a disproportionate rate of out-of-court settlements in the country;

> After several of its most plaintiff-friendly judges retired.

Got a cite for that? Defendants have been winning as much on average as plaintiffs since around 2006 or so, which is well before the retirements. There is considerable year to year variation, of course. Defendants did particularly well in 2013 in jury verdicts, for example, but then plaintiffs did well in 2014 so that they were in balance for the two years.

The article doesn't actually mention any details of the patents, or patent numbers. Anyone know what they relate to?

I found a list at http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2013/05/apples-i...

"Smartflash's lawsuit filing includes the following list of patents that they're claiming Apple has infringed upon: 7,334,720, 7,942,317, 8,033,458, 8,061,598, 8,118,221 and 8,336,772. All of the patents are respectively entitled "Data Storage and Access Systems.""

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