Apple slapped in yet another patent battle Apple has to fork out US$23.6 million to a former pager company after a jury decision in the US District Court, Eastern Texas. Mobile Telecommunications Technologies, which had filed a variety of patents back in the 1990s when it operated the SkyTel pager network, wanted US$237 million from Cupertino but didn't get it. Its …
They support the small guy with his patent against those big evil no good corporations... The jurors like nothing better than a good lynching at sunset.
The problem is, the prosecution lawyers make the patent trolls look like hard done by individuals, whose hard work is being stolen, and the defendents as big evil money grabbing corporations. The jurors seem to lap it up.
The US District Court of Eastern Texas is a business as far as I can tell. If you are a US company you can sue a foreign company (or foreign sounding company) and guarantee a win. If the plaintiffs are both US companies initially the smaller company will win - in the knowledge the bigger company will appeal and the cash registers will ring all over again.
This way the judges and lawyers get to spend time with rich business people and dont have to get too involved with trailer trash and other non-cash bison.
East Texas is often referred to as the 'Rocket Docket' due to its quick turnaround, and although that's not entirely true anymore (it often takes 2-3 years for a case to reach trial), the trials themselves still tend to be fairly quick (which makes it tough for defendants to mount an effective defense). In addition, defendants in East Texas are unlikely to win a case on summary judgement, as the judges refer patent lawsuits to juries much more frequently than other districts (jury trials tend to be much harder for defendants to win, and typically result in much larger verdicts).
I read the first patent and the the trivial obviousness of it was stunning.
The hurdle is supposed to be not obvious to someone skilled in the art. The patent would not have cleared the standard of not obvious to an unskilled but reasonably intelligent child.
Nothing against patents but they MUST be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art. The opposite seems to be the norm.
What else is new? There are a lot of obvious patents successfully sued over. If there weren't, this company wouldn't have bothered. If they got $23 million out of Apple, imagine what that East Texas jury will grant them against some nasty furriners like Samsung and HTC?
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