CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-broadcom-apple-verdict/caltech-wins-1-1-billion-jury-verdict-in-patent-case-against-apple-broadcom-idUSKBN1ZS399

by _Codemonkeyism • 6 years ago

207 135 6 years ago

reuters.com

pasttense01• 6 years ago

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.

twblalock• 6 years ago

The issues here are simply too complicated for juries to decide--particularly the amounts of money.

That's why the appeals courts exist.

senderista• 6 years ago

Pretty much any case requiring non-trivial evaluation of evidence is unsuited for a jury trial. Outsourcing the adjudication of justice to a dozen random people is stupidity on a par with deciding complex policy issues by popular referendum. There's a reason the non-Anglo-American developed world doesn't do it this way.

Paul-ish• 6 years ago

I wonder what a "jury of peers" would look like in these cases.

egdod6• 6 years ago

That actually refers to criminal cases, not civil.

vkou2• 6 years ago

Which is why both sides bring in, and cross-examine experts to help the jury decide.

colejohnson664• 6 years ago

IMO you shouldn’t need experts; The jury should (in the first place) consist of people who understand the issue. Not people who are swayed by buzzwords.

stefan_2• 6 years ago

There are tons of ways to avoid a jury panel. You find any sort of prior art and patents, along with any suits, simply vanish; you file a challenge with the patent office for reexamination, an expert there decides it's invalid, the case disappears.

colejohnson664• 6 years ago

You make it sound easy, but the patent office is severely overworked. Also, does the case just “go away?” Or do you have to file a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the patent is invalid?

egdod6• 6 years ago

That’s highly nontrivial. (And by the way, almost no one uses reexam anymore. It’s all about IPR these days.)

JoeAltmaier• 6 years ago

I.e. Broadcom stole Caltech patents and didn't pay royalties. Apple uses Broadcom chips (like many others). So they'll pay too.

daddypro• 6 years ago

Shouldn't Broadcom be solely responsible for this? If apple buys a product, why would apple be responsible for details that went into the hardware on BC's end? Not trying to troll - but genuinely trying to understand the logic/law here.

hnburnsy• 6 years ago

Yup, I think is is called patent infringement indemnification, but I'm guessing lawyers always sue everyone with deep pockets no matter what.

chrischen• 6 years ago

Then there would be a loophole where you make an independent entity that “makes” something that shields infinite liability. It makes sense to go after all beneficiary owners and parties.

tooltalk3• 6 years ago

Yep, it's called secondary infringement. Apple knows how to play the game -- Apple sued Samsung for Google Android specific features found in Samsung smartphones a few years ago (though the jury found no infringement).

sitkack• 6 years ago

That could fund a couple of sweet astrophysics experiments.

selimthegrim3• 6 years ago

Or free tuition for undergrads

BalinKing3• 6 years ago

The popular observation (truthful joke?) on campus is that they could give a full ride to 15 consecutive classes of undergrads with all that money...

randyrand• 6 years ago

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.

hcknwscommenter• 6 years ago

Possibly. However, very few "single individual[s]" would have the resources to fund such inventions AND the associated patent procurement AND fund such a litigation. Moreover, this will be appealed and the final outcome could take a decade.

davnicwil• 6 years ago

Your last point has me thinking - hypothetically if an individual were in this situation, could they sell 'equity' in the eventual settlement in order to take money off the table now, rather than go bankrupt from legal expenses etc and get nothing?

E.g. Sell 50% of the initially ruled $1.1B settlement for, say, $100MM.

Anything like this ever happened?

staticautomatic2• 6 years ago

That's not how trolling works. Your out of pocket cost for patent prosecution is maybe $20K or $30K per. If you want to litigate, you enter into a contingency or mixed-fee arrangement with a plaintiff firm and possibly also a litigation financier, depending upon the size of your pocketbook and your appetite for risk. Your lawyers build up a war chest by shaking down easy targets until it's big enough that they can lay siege to a big opponent. It's become more difficult to do this than it used to be due to recent developments in patent law, but it's still eminently possible and happens all the time. This is, in fact, how plaintiff litigation works in a number of other civil case types.

zweep• 6 years ago

What's wrong with that? If the idea behind a company is worth say 10 or 20% of the company, then the idea of limiting a blogging service to 140 characters, or the idea of blurring people's smartphone pics to make them more "artsy," have been rewarded to the billions of dollars as well.

dv_dt• 6 years ago

The Caltech endowment fund seems to be $3.2B. It seems like they're already pretty rich... and I suspect that lets them actually pursue these cases successfully.

selimthegrim3• 6 years ago

They’ve managed to be broke twice in the last 20 years despite receiving three of the four largest donations in higher education history. I wouldn’t put it past them.

oh_sigh• 6 years ago

Does anyone have information about what the patent is for? Google search shows 500 general news articles with no specific information about the lawsuit.

egdod6• 6 years ago

Here’s a blurb with the patent numbers. https://patentlyo.com/patent/2020/01/billion-verdict-caltech...

_rpd• 6 years ago

"Serial concatenation of interleaved convolutional codes forming turbo-like codes"

Trias11• 6 years ago

"... As a non-profit institution... "

Sounds legit.

OrgNet• 6 years ago

they're probably going to have to pay their employees a bonus?

easytiger• 6 years ago

is there an article on the details?

artemisyna• 6 years ago

Cause someone will make this comment eventually: "Caltech" not "CalTech". :)

WalterBright3• 6 years ago

You beat me to it!

BalinKing3• 6 years ago

It’s honestly really sad that even _professional_ journalists don’t know how to spell it correctly :-(

btilly3• 6 years ago

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!)

rileymat2• 6 years ago

But in this case, a research institution is getting more money, presumably to be able to fund further research. It seems like a perfect counter example of what your worries are about slowing progress.

btilly3• 6 years ago

I bet that the money that they get will largely go to lawyers, administration, and increased efforts around finding/litigating patents on current research.

I am extremely dubious that it will result in research that advances the state of science. Science flourishes best when you share results and hypotheses early and often, then get feedback/inspire others. But that type of communication threatens patents, so inspires people to put their research into black boxes until the legal paperwork has been filed.

amelius• 6 years ago

But in this case, a research institution is getting more money, presumably to be able to fund further research.

Yes, research that can't be used for reasonable amounts of money, and therefore out of reach for startups.

coldpie3• 6 years ago

Did CalTech's filing of this patent help Apple or Broadcom's engineers create their devices? I sincerely doubt it. This is just patent trolling, and Caltech should be shamed for it.

b1ur• 6 years ago

I personally think that patents are necessary to promote independent (i.e. non-corporate) innovation. If an individual has a novel idea they should be entitled to some of the money that a corporation makes using that idea.

Of course, the US patent system is pretty deeply flawed. I participated in a study involving patent infringement allegations between two big companies, and my opinion was consistently "Why was this patent approved?"

coldpie3• 6 years ago

If an individual has a novel idea they should be entitled to some of the money that a corporation makes using that idea.

Absolutely not. Suppose I, Mr Independent Inventor, come up with some idea and convince the patent office to grant me a patent, and then proceed to do exactly nothing with it. Five years later, Ms Employed Engineer working at ABC Corp comes up with the same idea, and they manage to turn it into a product, which becomes successful. I contributed nothing to their product. Why on Earth am I owed any money for their work?

canada_dry• 6 years ago

I thought this was an interesting take on intellectual property/patents i.e. “gongkai”:

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297

bsinger98• 6 years ago

I completely disagree. If I invent a new technology I should have the right to sell it. It is not fair for the inventor to create a novel technology only to have a huge corporation steal your idea. It is similar to China stealing US IP, it ruins the incentive to actually invent new ideas. If I create something novel, I deserve a short term monopoly so I can compete against established corporations.

For example, look at the Wright Brothers. They invented the airplane and didn't make any money. They spent their entire life suing people for stealing their idea. The system should encourage and incentivize creating ground breaking inventions.

rudedogg• 6 years ago

If I create something novel, I deserve a short term monopoly so I can compete against established corporations.

I agree, but I don't think the current patent system does this. I think the length of patents should be reduced dramatically, 5 years sounds reasonable.

It's crazy when you think about how patents last for 20 years, which doesn't really work with the current pace of technology IMO (as an example, the iPhone wasn't released until 2007). So you can't use anything Apple patented to make the ORIGINAL iPhone work until... 2027? That doesn't seem good for humanity to me.

If the lengths were reduced, and the requirements much more strict, I think the world would be a better place.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent

simonh• 6 years ago

Their problem was that other engineers didn’t actually use the novel tech the brothers invented in their airplanes. The basic idea of putting an engine with a propeller on a winged vehicle was not novel, it had been tried many times before. It was simply a matter of power to weight ratios and aerodynamics knowledge crossing the right threshold.

Their key innovation was wing warping for control, but the industry rapidly switched to flaps and ailerons, leaving the brothers’ main innovation behind. Their aerodynamic concepts were advanced, but again others pushed beyond their concepts very quickly.

So their technical innovations were brilliant, but not used extensively by later engineers.

alasdair_• 6 years ago

I agree somewhat. The problem is that there are so many bullshit patents in the world that mostly just create a minefield for those trying to create new things.

A proposal (in “Radical Markets”) I agree with is to charge a property tax of, say, 2% for each year that a patent holder wants to keep the patent. The value of the patent is whatever the owner decides it should be but (to prevent claims of $1 values) the owner must sell the patent to the first entity willing to pay more than the declared value.

This, in theory, would ensure that only patents that were genuinely useful would be kept around rather than being used as tools to stifle innovation or rent seek for those that actually create great works.

p1necone• 6 years ago

The problem seems to be that the bar for "novelty" in software patents is extremely low. (Amazon's patent on 1 click ordering is probably my favorite example).

6gvONxR4sf7o• 6 years ago

If you invent a new technology as part of a grant funded by my tax dollars, it's much less clear.

salawat• 6 years ago

You realize the Wright Brothers in particular are an absolutely horrible example of the patent system working right?

Their patent trolling is credited with setting back the development of the United States aviation industry for years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war

So really, the only benefit is the actual patent ending up in the public domain, at the cost of further slowing down the field when someone ends up with patent rights assigned andisfeeling particularly litigous.

poizan42• 6 years ago

For example go out and implement a wavelet compression algorithm for images without violating any patents.

Aren't those expiring around this time? I'm thinking a lot of the work was in the late 1990ies, e.g. jpeg2k was developed 1997-2000.

strbean• 6 years ago

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.

See the mess around CRISPR patents for an excellent example of this.

egdod6• 6 years ago

See the motivation to fund CRISPR research for a counterpoint.

Retric2• 6 years ago

What’s crazy is universities don’t fund research. That’s a more central issue. They both directly profit from research and want to then own the results of that research, it’s a parasitic relationship with funding agencies.

bhl2• 6 years ago

The CRISPR debacle is a funny story because on one side you have a public institution and on the other side you have a private institution.

However, both in reality are publicly funded whether that be through government grants or tax breaks on endowments. I think we should do a trade: an institution that in someway benefits from the public should get credit for the discovery but patent goes back to the public.

Edit: I realize there’s a chance that whatever I just said, there’s a small European country that already has implemented this idea.

msla• 6 years ago

I agree that research institutions shouldn't pursue patents, but I think patents in general have some value, because they discourage companies from relying on trade secrets, which used to be the norm, and is why certain ancient and medieval inventions were lost once the guilds dissolved and took their trade secrets with them.

zzzzzzzza• 6 years ago

how do we know trade secrets would be as effective today?

pacetherace• 6 years ago

Universities want to generate royalty from the patents. Their motivation is not to block others from using their patents.

egdod6• 6 years ago

€ I strongly believe that the pursuing of patents gets in the way of the collaboration that helps science progress

Do you have any evidence for this belief?

dylan604• 6 years ago

Is this why we don't have any progress in the wavelet world? When I first heard about wavelet compression, it was supposed to be so much more impressive than DCT based algorithms. The only wavelet encoder I'm familiar with is JPEG2000, and it's adoption has not really been too wide.

Are the patents for wavelet more oppressive than H.26[4-5]?

yalogin• 6 years ago

How about patents created by public universities should automatically be in the public domain so every one benefits. After all, they are government funded.

basementcat• 6 years ago

This used to be the case until the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act

Aperocky• 6 years ago

What happen if I create an algorithm and then put it up with GPL? Can someone sue me for just writing code?

yalok• 6 years ago

Patents and code licensing rights are not related. You may release your code under GPL and if it violates some patent, the owner may sue you or whoever uses your code.

WalterBright3• 6 years ago

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.

astrodust• 6 years ago

Why would Apple care? A billion dollars to them is a speeding ticket. It hurts smaller companies more. One hostile patent lawsuit can tank a startup or sink a small, established company that can't afford to fend it off.

It's the smaller companies that should care and lobby as a collective.

btilly3• 6 years ago

According to economic theory, the ability of a company to sustain profits in the long term is based on having barriers to entry to their market. This kind of patent threat is a barrier to entry, and suffering on the losing end of them is rent on the profit margin that they have been able to sustain.

Therefore, even with these losses, the patent system is worthwhile for them.

mirimir• 6 years ago

True. But barriers to market entry is also a prong for establishing monopoly power. So it cuts both ways.

bmdavi32• 6 years ago

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...

lilyball2• 6 years ago

I think you're confusing software patents and design patents, because the latter is what Apple famously used against Samsung.

bmdavi32• 6 years ago

Thank you. You're correct, I've wondered why this isn't mentioned more often, and maybe that's why.

However even after realizing that, I personally still consider a design patent about rounded corners to be on the same level of B.S. as a software patent, and still stand by my conclusions. But I'd be interested to know why I shouldn't do that, and if you have more information I'm honestly all ears

cma• 6 years ago

They sure them for multitouch software as well didn't they?

vvanders• 6 years ago

Yup, I've got stories of some really shady shit Apple pulled with the FTC around their "design" patents.

Put them in the same class as Oracle as far as I'm concerned. After it happened I swore off developing another piece of software for Apple or supporting any of their products.

grecy• 6 years ago

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 realize Jobs and Apple were/are big, but what makes you think he had any hope in hell of doing anything about patent reform?

derf_• 6 years ago

The America Invents Act was signed into law in September 2011. This was exactly the time to do something about patent reform. There was a lot of discussion about it among tech companies at the time, but little leadership and no unified message on anything beyond, "Trolls are bad." Congress was not likely to (and did not) revisit the issue for some time afterwards.

mathattack• 6 years ago

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?

CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

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