If you get sued, you should be able to figure out who sued you. Remarkably, though, people and companies who are accused of patent infringement in federal court often have no idea who is truly behind the lawsuit. Patent trolls, companies whose main business is extorting others over patents, often...
appleph said: This is tiring, like every notable feature Apple has, somebody would claim is already patented. I wonder if Apple already established a "Patent department/team".On the other hand Apple has a policy of not licensing tech and then effectively stealing it. I don't know the details here but overall Apple doesn't have a good track record. Look at what Apple did to Imagination Technologies if you don't want to believe me. Imagination is just one firm they have screwed over royally. In a nut shell too many people get on the bandwagon to defend Apple in these cases, seemingly in denial of Apple on going behavior. Now is Apple guilty here, I have no idea as that would take a lot of time to examine all of the involved details. I'm not however going to give Apple a free pass before the details are known.
Patent troll sues Apple alleging Apple Pay infringement
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Apple is a member of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), whose principal activity is trying to stop copyright infringement of software produced by BSA members; Apple treats all its intellectual property as a business asset, engaging in litigation as one method among many to police its assets and to respond to claims by others against it.[3] Apple's portfolio of intellectual property is broad enough, for trademarks alone, to encompass several pages of the company's web site and, in April 2012, it listed 176 general business trademarks, 79 service marks, 7 trademarks related to NeXT products and services, and 2 trademarks related to FileMaker.[4] Apple claims copyright interests in multiple products and processes and owns and licenses patents of various types as well and, while it states it generally does not license its patent portfolio, it does work with third parties having an interest in product interoperability.[5] Steve Jobs alone was a named inventor on over 300 design and utility patents.[1][6] Between January 2008 and May 2010, Apple Inc. filed more than 350 cases with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office (USPTO) alone, most in opposition to or taking exception to others' use of the terms "apple", "pod", and "safari"; those cases include sellers of apples (the fruit), as well as many others' less unassuming use of the term "apple".[7]
In June 2008, Apple was named among others as a defendant in a suit brought by plaintiff Typhoon Touch Technologies in the federal U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging patent infringement in portable touch screen technology.[200] The suit illustrated the vagaries of litigating patent licensing and royalty collection issues in the commercial exploitation of intellectual property rights. Ultimately, Typhoon could not prevail against patent defense arguments of prior art and obviousness and earned itself a reputation as a patent troll.[201] Typhoon acquired two pre-existing patents, (filed in 1993 and 1994 and issued in 1995 and 1997), in mid-2007 for $350,000 plus a percentage of collected licensing fees.[202] The patents had languished for some time and were not being policed; shortly after Typhoon acquired the patents, it began enforcement by bringing suit against exploiters of the technology who had not paid licensing fees. Typhoon was successful in its patent infringement suits against some small companies, and then expanded its litigation to go after larger ones. Typhoon alleged that Apple and others used its patented technology inventions without permission. Typhoon originally filed the suit in December 2007 against Dell after settling with some smaller companies but, in mid-2008, amended its complaint to add Apple,[203] Fujitsu, Toshiba, Lenovo, Panasonic, HTC, Palm, Samsung, Nokia, and LG.[204][205] In 2010, Apple settled with Typhoon for an undisclosed sum and was then dismissed from the litigation as of September 2010.[206] The other large companies were able to rebuff Typhoon's claims, and Typhoon ceased doing business in 2008 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) suspended its trading in a fraud investigation.[207][208]
Apple filed a patent infringement suit against High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) in March 2010 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware[212] in the two companies' ongoing battle with each other,[213] and a complaint against HTC under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, D.C.[214][215] Apple's suit alleged 20 separate patent infringements relating to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.[216] Steve Jobs exclaimed "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it ... [We] think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours".[217] The ITC rejected all but one of Apple's claims, however, ruling for Apple on a single claim relating to data tapping.[218][219] HTC motioned the Delaware court for a change of venue to the Northern District of California, arguing against Apple's desire to consolidate the case with the similar cases brought by Nokia against Apple,[220] alleging insubstantial overlap between those cases and Apple's complaint, but Judge Gregory M. Sleet denied HTC's motion for a venue change, ruling that Apple's choice of forum would prevail.[212] HTC countersued Apple in September 2011 in the same court claiming infringement of four patents HTC obtained from Google,[221] also filing a counter-complaint with the ITC, with HTC's general counsel saying "HTC will continue to protect its patented inventions against infringement from Apple until such infringement stops."[221][222] In May 2012 the Delaware court ordered mediation between the companies.[223] In November 2012, HTC and Apple ended the patent dispute by settling the case, but did not disclose the terms of the settlement. The companies reported the settlement included a 10-year agreement for licensing both companies' current and future patents to each other."[224]
What makes it so hilarious to me (regardless where the patent was filled) is that someone (person/company/entity) coming from place of the world that holds absolutely no respect to intellectual property (I guess examples could go in millions of instances) actually sues someone from "patent-sensitive part of the world" for patent infringement.
But apple's dual sensor patent is about combining a sensor that captures color with one that captures luminance - the latter is basically a monochrome sensor. Hence the relevance of this older patent.
Sounds like one of those Chinese troll companies suing American companies for patent infringements. They could be a reaction from Trump's trade war. Not to defend Apple here but expect a lot of them to clog the American courts on other tech companies with allegation of patent infringements from China.
Well, if you generalize the concept, you can say that it covers any attempt to improve image quality by using more than one sensor. In particular, I expect one of the sensors is monochromatic even in apple's implementation, hence another overlap with this patent.
This in turn has resulted in more patent assertion entities (PAEs), which are often called patent trolls, purchasing the patents and filing lawsuits alleging infringement of them. In 2021 alone, PAEs asserted 1,375 patents in more than 2,400 cases worldwide.
Patent trolling can be a lucrative undertaking because of the ambiguous nature of intellectual property. "A patent troll is a firm that sues opportunistically in hopes that an imperfect legal system will rule in its favor, maximizing expected proceeds rather than penalties to infringement," says Cohen. Patent trolls bank that, in some cases, companies will settle rather than pay the time and monetary costs of fighting infringement lawsuits. In others cases, patent trolls seek sympathetic judges who will rule in their favor. "Patent trolls are exploiting inefficiencies in the legal system regarding how we define and enforce intellectual property rights."
If the majority of NPEs are, in fact, patent trolls, then there is new urgency for legislation that makes it harder for them to sue, perhaps by increasing the cost of bringing cases, or by putting more of the burden of proving actual infringement on plaintiffs. Already, the research has garnered attention from Congress: it was recently cited by Senator Orrin Hatch on the floor of the Senate. Cohen hopes that the team's research can inform the debate over legislation limiting NPEs' abilities to bring frivolous lawsuits.
In mid-April I reported that "Apple called calls out Google on flawed search methodology, responsibility for Android's infringement". This was not about Google's Internet search engine but about a discovery dispute in the second California Apple v. Samsung case. Apple's patent infringement allegations relate to Android-based devices, and while some of the infringement contentions involve Samsung's proprietary extension built on top of Google's Android operating system, others don't. That's why Google is a key source of documents relevant to the infringement issues in that case. Apple was thoroughly disappointed by Google's production (i.e., delivery) of documents and attributed the scarcity of search results to the use of suboptimal search terms. Given Google's expertise in search, this could only be intentional, of course.
While agreeing with Chief Justice Robert's concurrence that "history may be instructive" in applying the traditional four-factor test for deciding whether an injunction should issue or not in patent infringement cases, Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Stephen Breyer, suggested that historical practice might not necessarily be helpful for courts to follow when dealing with some patent infringement suits in the current business environment: "[T]rial courts should bear in mind that in many instances the nature of the patent being enforced and the economic function of the patent holder present considerations quite unlike earlier cases."65 Justice Kennedy acknowledged the emergence of patent holding companies (so-called "patent trolls")66 and their impact on patent litigation today: 2ff7e9595c
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