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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Tech News > Apple on the hook for $533M lawsuit payout over in-app purchase tech

Apple on the hook for $533M lawsuit payout over in-app purchase tech
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NewsPoster
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Feb 25, 2015, 08:34 AM
 
Apple has been handed a rare loss in a patent licensing trial. The Cupertino manufacturer has been ordered to pay patent aggregation company Smartflash, a non-practicing entity, $532.9 million for willful infringement of the company's patents in iTunes and in-app purchase processing. The trial was held in Tyler, Texas, the "rocket docket" of patent courts, and notoriously friendly to patent trolls.

The suit alleges that the ideas were stolen from inventor Patcick Racz in 2000, following a meeting with Apple senior director Augustin Farrugia. Apple contended that the "Data Storage and Access Systems" patents at the heart of the trial were covered by other patents that Apple already owned or licensed, but the jury disagreed.

Specifically named as violating Smartflash's in-app purchase patents are Robot Entertainment's Hero Academy, KingsIsle's Grub Guardian and WizardBlox, and a variety of products from Game Circus. Presumably, several other titles may also be in violation, but the three companies above have a corporate presence in Texas.

"Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no USpresence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented. We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating, and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system," Apple said in a statement following the verdict, which took the jury six hours to reach.

Smartfish attorney Brad Caldwell said of the verdict that "Smartflash is very happy with the jury's verdict, which recognizes Apple's longstanding willful infringement." An appeal is likely. Amazon, Google, and Samsung are all under the gun with lawsuits filed by Snapfish.

( Last edited by Mike Wuerthele; Mar 2, 2015 at 06:18 AM. )
     
Inkling
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Feb 25, 2015, 10:09 AM
 
Before you get outraged, keep in mind that pro-business Republicans have been trying to clean out this crooked-lawyer-run hell hole for years. Not so the Democrats, who get buckets of money from tort lawyers. As Wikipedia notes, the Judge James Rodney Gilstrap who ruled against Apple was "appointed by President Barrack Obama." Note that Apple, Amazon, and Google tilted heavily toward Obama in their political giving in 2008 and 2012 (particularly Google in 2008). This decision isn't right in an ethical sense, but it is justice—excellent justice in fact. Apple and their equally foolish high-tech colleagues help put in power a crooked Chicago-machine administration. Apple and the rest will end up paying out perhaps two to three billion dollars in consequence. That's reaping what you've sown. We should be delighted that Apple lost this one and hoping that Amazon and Google will likewise. It evens the scales of justice a bit for all the horrors the Obama administration has been imposing or ordinary people around the world—horrors such as Obamacare and the worst foreign policy blunders in living memory.
Author of Untangling Tolkien and Chesterton on War and Peace
     
SunSeeker
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Feb 25, 2015, 10:47 AM
 
I thought Apple were notable for their lack of 'Political Giving'

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/4022624105x0x740601/2FA4EEDA-D9B7-43FE-AD1D-FCDF880362F3/2014.04.03_Political_Contributions.pdf
     
SunSeeker
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Feb 25, 2015, 10:51 AM
 
"lawsuits filed by Snapfish."

What is the Snapfish involvement?
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Feb 25, 2015, 10:52 AM
 
Originally Posted by SunSeeker View Post
"lawsuits filed by Snapfish."

What is the Snapfish involvement?
Nothing. Stupid brain. Fixed.
     
Grendelmon
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Feb 25, 2015, 12:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by Inkling View Post
That's reaping what you've sown..
Wow. Just wow.

So you're saying that these lawsuit victories are justified simply because these same technology companies politically funded a specific campaign?

You are ****ing nuts, man. Just nuts.
     
Flying Meat
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Feb 25, 2015, 01:48 PM
 
This on that:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/business/24ward.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Goes to a history of this even before Obama.
     
Flying Meat
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Feb 25, 2015, 01:57 PM
 
This site also directly refutes your origin claim that Obama made this happen:
http://www.triallawyersinc.com/updates/tli_update11.html

Specifically the first paragraph of the "DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS" section, wherein:
"When Trial Lawyers, Inc. goes shopping for venues for patent-troll-sponsored lawsuits, they like to end up in the Eastern District of Texas, which houses Marshall, Tyler, and Texarkana along the Arkansas and Louisiana borders. The district's emergence as the nation's foremost magnet court for patent lawsuits traces roughly to 1999, when Clinton appointee T. John Ward, a lawyer in private practice with previous experience largely in medical-malpractice and product-liability litigation, assumed the bench in Marshall."
     
Charles Martin
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Feb 25, 2015, 02:09 PM
 
I'd bet this gets overturned on appeal. Sorry you're down with a case of ODS, Inkling, hope you recover soon.
Charles Martin
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PJL500
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Feb 25, 2015, 04:09 PM
 
Inkling. In this case not a apt username. "horrors such as Obamacare" - Fox News much?
     
Flying Meat
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Feb 25, 2015, 08:50 PM
 
"...and the worst foreign policy blunders in living memory."
That living memory has got to be some sort of congenital disorder.
     
The Vicar
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Feb 26, 2015, 05:55 PM
 
What is with right-wingers, lately? They've always been kind of delusional in an "I reject your reality and substitute my own" kind of way, but in the last month or so it's like they're on steroids or something. You'd think that after the actions of the previous Republican president basically created ISIS (by destroying Iraq), bankrupted the country (paying for the war) and crashed the economy ALL IN THE SAME ADMINISTRATION, they'd at least shut up, but it's like they've gone into overdrive lately.
     
Flying Meat
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Feb 26, 2015, 08:34 PM
 
Double down. It always works!
     
   
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