If it were any other company I'd get depressed and say it's another victim of the tragedy of software patents. But Apple deserves every post-Creative Labs patent victory ruled against them.
For anyone that doesn't know, in 2006 Apple was caught off guard and sued by Creative Labs over the iPod, resulting in a $100 million settlement. It was total nonsense and Jobs was right to be pissed, but what does he do? Does he get fired up to bring about patent reform? No! He doubles down on software patents himself and goes on to sue Samsung in the same shitty way in 2011.
I mean, it's too late now to turn the ship around on software patents. It's never going to change. But 2006 - 2011 were prime growth years for Apple, where they could have made a great case to the public for how software patents were bad and used in a totally bogus way against a well liked American company.
And if he didn't want to do that, he could have built up a library of patents to squirrel away for defensive purposes on a rainy day.
But no. He got burned by Creative Labs, hated the experience, and turned around and did the same exact thing to a totally unrelated company.
When it comes to software patents, fuck Steve Jobs and Apple.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/10/creative-pushed-stev...
Live by the sword, die by the sword. I wonder when Apple, Broadcom, etc., will have enough of these pyrrhic patent lawsuit victories and start lobbying for an end, or at least a major curtailment, of the patent system.
Cause someone will make this comment eventually: "Caltech" not "CalTech". :)
The issues here are simply too complicated for juries to decide--particularly the amounts of money.
If Apple was simply using devices it purchased from Broadcom, Broadcom should be responsible for all the damages.
If the patents were owned by a single individual instead of caltech, would the verdict be as large? They’d instantly be in the top 3000 richest people in the world.
Does anyone have information about what the patent is for? Google search shows 500 general news articles with no specific information about the lawsuit.
That could fund a couple of sweet astrophysics experiments.
I.e. Broadcom stole Caltech patents and didn't pay royalties. Apple uses Broadcom chips (like many others). So they'll pay too.
Will either company stop recruiting at CalTech as a result? Probably still worth it for CalTech, but very few schools are willing to take on Big Tech. Would Stanford ever do this?
is there an article on the details?
CalTech is partially taxpayer-funded.
Where's my part of that $1.1B? (Pro-rata taxes I paid).
"... As a non-profit institution... "
Sounds legit.
This decision saddens me.
I strongly believe that the pursuing of patents gets in the way of the collaboration that helps science progress. It creates evidence of innovation (ie patents), but slows actual innovation.
Anything that gives universities more of an incentive to pursue the patent angle, which this judgment does, will therefore be bad for science. :-(
(In CS, whole areas have become minefields for this reason. For example go out and implement a wavelet compression algorithm for images without violating any patents. Are you sure you didn't violate patents? Really sure? Exactly!)