Apple Ordered to Pay $21.7 Million in Patent Suit
Apple has been ordered to pay Opti Inc. a total of $21.7 million in damages following a patent infringement suit.
If this rings any bells it's because Opti actually sued Apple successfully earlier this year. Ars Technica reports that, in a lawsuit filed in 2007, OPTi alleged Apple had infringed upon its patent covering "predictive snooping of cache memory for master-initiated accesses."
The technology, in general, uses predictive snooping of cache memory to speed up PCI bus data transfers, with the intent of maintaining a constant transfer rate. This year, a jury determined willful infringement and Apple was ordered to pay $19 million in "reasonable royalties."
Apple opposed the verdict, stating that it had not willfully infringed upon the patent and claiming the use of the technology is "obvious" and covered by prior art. This week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham granted Apple's motion for judgment as a matter of law that it did not willfully infringe Opti's patent for predictive cache snooping. However, according to Ars, Everingham issued a guilty verdict anyway, ordering the Cupertino-based Mac maker to pay a total of $21.7 million in damages.
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Overpriced @ $2500.00 Apple just needs to sell 7600 Mac Pro Workstations.
Overpriced @ $2500.00 Apple just needs to sell 7600 Mac Pro Workstations.
"$21mil? ah dang, well it'll return in 2 days selling 7600 mac pro. No worries guys."
*points finger at apple and says Ha Ha*
'Pocket Change'
Where were all the cool phones from Motorola, Samsung, LG, and HTC before the iphone showed up?
Blackberry
Where were all the thin laptops before the Mac Air?
Mitsubishi Pedion in 1998
Besides, the macbook air has had major overheating problems.
Anyway reguardless, they need to get a handle on the patent trolls before all the companies who do create, build, and innovate decide they can't produce anything new without getting sued.
I agree with you on that one.
Right! This is getting out of hand. Apple and every other tech company must have whole law firms working full itme on law suits against each other.
Tomorrow's news... Apple is awarded 21.7 million dollar in patent law suit.
By definition, if their device does not work, then they are patenting the idea of what it would do.
I would like to the patten the idea of manned space flight to Mars. I don't know all the details, or even have a working model, but why should that matter?
Uh, yeah... I think it's a little more involved than that. In order to file for a patent, you have to provide blueprints, or code or a plan of some sort; this is in addition to a DETAILED narrative of what it is that the device or code is supposed to do and how it is supposed to work. The device or algorithm doesn't have to be functional.
If another company comes along and builds a functional device or algorithm that is substantially based upon the schematics or code you submitted for patent, then there is a high degree of probability that you will receive a judgement in your favor. You can not simply patent an idea. So your notion about patenting the idea of a manned space flight to Mars won't work. However, if you came up with a space-craft design, even if it is not functional, THEN you could patent it and sit back waiting (hoping) that someone steals your design.
Ironically, if they did, you would be smiling all the way to the bank and some other idiot on a forum or blog would be whining about how people shouldn't be able to patent idea.
To just patent ideas... that is where things get tricky.
Really? Wow, this sounds similar to BRANCH PREDICTION! You are just doing it at a different level. Apple needs to ditch lawyers (yes, I hate them) and get a good engineer who can present tech data to "simple" people, and this should be dismissed.
Predictive snooping...wow. I am going to file a patent on "Command Arragement, using any number of data bits from 1 to 1TB..."
Now I just sit back and sue any chip maker that goes and makes CPUs using instruction sets. GOLD!
/sarcasm
As a side note, did you know that someone patented peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Smuckers bought and still holds the patent.