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"He had previously whittled down Apple’s four patent infringement claims to one"




Wow Macworld you could not be more wrong with this article Judge Posner whittled down apples patents from 15 to 4, and Motorola's from 6 to 1. He dissmissed both parties patents with predudice. Please get the facts right.
See http://www.fosspaten...of-two-way.html

Macworld, on 25 June 2012 - 04:01 AM, said:

I'll just bet they're pleased as punch... regardless of the judges ruling on their "red herring" counter suit, the bottom line is that Motorola can continue to copy Apple's innovative designs with impunity -- well, assuming that Apple's inevitable appeal to this ruling meets the same fate, of course. This story is almost certainly not over, quite yet.

This post has been edited by zarmanto: 25 June 2012 - 07:21 AM

So let me see here... Posner is NOT saying that Motorola didn't rip off Apple, just that Apple didn't show that it was significantly harmed by the ripoff. Posner is NOT saying that Motorola didn't infringe on the Apple patents, just that Apple didn't prove that it was harmed by the infringement, and that Apple's suit was thus (apparently) not a direct patent infringement suit? In which case Apple is incompetent, and I would agree that this case should be dismissed.

And Posner ruled that apparently Apple CAN file a suit that just plain says that Apple owns some patents that Motorola ripped off??

And I agree with a previous poster that the author should get her facts right in the first place.

zarmanto, on 25 June 2012 - 07:20 AM, said:

You did miss the point a bit, Motorola hasn't been given permission to "copy Apple's innovative designs with impunity...", but rather, Motorola can continue to use the designs and technologies they developed independently.

phdtop, on 25 June 2012 - 07:57 AM, said:

If you read the Florean Mueller of foss patents that I posted the link to above What Judge Posner is saying is that both Apple and Motorola failed to explain there cases well enough to him and he wont accept a half baked argument from either side. So instead of ruling on poor arguments from both sides he dissmissed both of there cases against each other with prejudice meaning he wont hear them again from either motorola or apple. He did not say that there cases are without merit just that he is not willing to put up with poor arguments from either side. He also suggested remedies to both sides in his decision. To apple He suggested licensing there patents to motorola and to motorola he told them on the one frand patent they had left that they have agreed to license that patent on frand terms and that there bound by that agreement. Also that the terms of 2.5% of apples full revenue off the finished iOS devices is not frand it is extortion. Both parties can appeal this decision, just not with Judge Richard Posner.

This post has been edited by Diesel50: 25 June 2012 - 09:18 AM

NoteBook, on 25 June 2012 - 07:58 AM, said:

I disagree, and I would suggest that you missed my point entirely... but I am happy to clarify for you: The original purpose of this lawsuit had nothing to do with any designs and technologies developed independently by Motorola; rather, Apple has been claiming from the beginning that Motorola (and other Android vendors) are all copying a huge collection of Apple's patented designs and concepts. In response, Motorola scratched together a counter-suit alleging that Apple has also violated some (entirely unrelated) Motorola patents -- but Motorola doesn't care in the least if they never receive any royalties from those patents, because they were only used to confuse the issue, and prevent the judge from being able to properly focus on Apple's patent claims. Thus, Motorola has won the privilege of continuing to infringe upon any and/or all of Apple's patents which were originally defined in this lawsuit -- for the moment, at least.

What I find interesting, though, is that Posner's ruling actually states that he agrees that Motorola is indeed copying Apple -- but he argues that the manner in which they have done so is perfectly legal, and unrelated to the patents that Apple claimed were infringed upon. Part of the flaw in Posner's ruling (in my opinion) is that he had unreasonably insisted that Apple narrow the field to a much smaller selection of patents... and the thing is, the damages to Apple's revenue stream can only be demonstrated by the shear scope of all of those various infringements combined... not by only analyzing the smaller subset of patents. In other words, Posner saw that this was going to by necessity become a long drawn out discussion involving lots and lots of very confusing technical details, and he wasn't interested in dealing with that sort of thing... he simply couldn't be bothered to actually do his job. Personally, I think Apple might be able to win the appeal based upon this one factor alone.

zarmanto, on 25 June 2012 - 11:03 AM, said:

I don't think he was refusing to do his job, he was simply refusing to play the traditional patent lawsuit game with the two legal teams. Most of these cases are argued sloppily by simply slinging a bunch a junk into the court system (you yourself pointed this out in Motorola's suit). Basically the judge seems to be saying that he is not willing to deal with such abuse of the system and that if either party wants to argue a serious cases they are welcome to (and he even helpfully gives them pointers on how to do so).

I would argue that if these companies do their job regarding creating innovative or well designed products they don't need to engage in these sorts of legal battles over every little aspect of their designs. By the time someone has time to copy what they want they are already a year or so behind and often the copy is rather clumsy as they don't have time to fully understand the hows and whys of the designs they are copying. This gives the innovator a period of several years to capitalize on their innovation during which they can be innovating further to start the cycle over again. After all, Apple is doing very well despite having had lots of its designs copied in competing products.

This post has been edited by Stewsburntmonkey: 25 June 2012 - 11:22 AM

zarmanto, on 25 June 2012 - 11:03 AM, said:

I would have to dissagree with your entire first paragraph. Judge Posner did not say motorola was not infringing on apples patents on the contrary he said that both sides wanted injunctions and that neither side proved to him by argument that they could not settle this without an injunction and also that neither side argued to his satisfaction monetary damages claims either.
A couple of quotes from Judge Posners ruling:

"By failing to present a minimally adequate damages case, Apple has disabled itself from arguing that damages would not provide a complete remedy, going forward in the form of running royalties, as well as backward."

"In fact neither party is entitled to an injunction. Neither has shown that damages would not be an adequate remedy. True, neither has presented sufficient evidence of damages to withstand summary judgment—but that is not because damages are impossible to calculate with reasonable certainty and are therefore an inadequate remedy; it’s because the parties have failed to present enough evidence to create a triable issue. They had an adequate legal remedy but failed to make a prima facie case of how much money, by way of such remedy, they are entitled to. That was a simple failure of proof."

Thus you can see by Judge Posners statements in his judgement he rejects both Apples and Motorolas cases on the basis of there arguments being insufficient to produce a triable case, and therefore dismissed both apples case and motorolas as a waste of the courts time.

No where in his judgement does he say that motorola is entitled to use apples ip without royalties or licenses.

This post has been edited by Diesel50: 25 June 2012 - 11:30 AM

Stewsburntmonkey, on 25 June 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

Fair enough -- to a point. The problem is that acknowledging that Motorola's suit amounts to "slinging a bunch of junk" does not by necessity mean that Apple's suit amounts to the same. However, Posner made a blanket ruling that this was indeed the case; in effect, the merits of Apple's own arguments were buried by Motorola's flood of unrelated crap.

I'd also like to note that any pointers Posner gave them might well be largely moot going forward... since he has also essentially stated that he never wants to see the two companies arguing over this issue in his court again, and it's not entirely reasonable to assume that his pointers will be beneficial in future arguments in front of a different presiding judge.

Stewsburntmonkey, on 25 June 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

That is an entirely separate discussion, and I won't argue with you on that in the least. In fact, some of the most creative things Apple has done have had nothing at all to do with patents, such as locking up entire supply chains of the hardware necessary to manufacture certain types of devices... that is no doubt directly related to why Apple is still doing so well, while the competition scrounges to find the resources necessary to effectively compete.

zarmanto, on 25 June 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

He heard all the arguments and made a decision that neither argument was good enough. There is no evidence the quality of Motorola's suit hindered Apple's ability to make a valid argument.

zarmanto, on 25 June 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

Both sides can appeal the ruling, which would give them another shot at it (in a higher court), so the advice isn't really moot.

Diesel50, on 25 June 2012 - 11:20 AM, said:

Okay. Three points:

1) Apple doesn't care about royalties. They only want their competitors to stop copying them. They've said as much on numerous occasions, in fact. So of course they would not be willing to suggest any kind of monetary value for the damages, under the constraints set by Posner... because the actual damages come from the combined impact of all of the patents originally asserted, and effectively amount to one hundred percent of the revenue from the sales of all Android devices! Posner himself crippled Apple's ability to argue damages, not Apple.

2) Motorola also doesn't care about royalties, in spite of their statements to the contrary. They also don't care about injunctions; that was all a ruse to obscure their real objectives. They only want Apple to stop suing them. This is an entirely different position from which to argue, and in some respects, it is a position of significantly greater strength. They've already reaped the rewards from their misdeeds, and they only wish to likewise continue to profit from Android devices without having to worry about Apple's patents. By getting the case thrown out of court, they get exactly what they want. (This should be pretty obvious by their response after the ruling.)

3) Lastly, Posner didn't have to rule that Motorola is "entitled" to violate Apple's patents... that is merely the unspoken impact of his having dismissed the case with prejudice. He is basically saying that both kids need to get on their bikes, go home, and leave each other the heck alone... and by extension, Motorola (now Google, come to think of it) can continue to operate exactly as they have been, without fear that Apple will bring up any of the patents at issue in that court ever again. Thus, Apple will be forced to appeal to a higher court.