Best of FRANDs: Judge allows Apple retrial following $506m patent infringement ruling
- Reference: 1618567206
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/04/16/apple_panoptis_patent_retrial/
- Source link:
Although Apple was not permitted to relitigate the question of its liability, the retrial will determine how much it's on the hook for.
[2]
This decision has likely proven bittersweet for Apple, which had been looking for a broader retrial, arguing the jury was not instructed about PanOptis's obligation to license its patents to the company on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) basis.
Since the patents subject of this trial are known to be standards essential patents (SEPs), PanOptis was legally obliged to make them available to Apple on FRAND terms.
[3]
Judge Gilstrap, of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Marshall Division, said: "The absence of FRAND evidence and instructions to the jury casts serious doubt on the reliability of the verdict, and a new trial regarding damages is warranted.
"In large part because of the conscious acts of both parties, the Court now finds itself left with a very large damages award made as to SEPs where the jury never heard the acronym FRAND or heard evidence about how that concept impacted a fair damages award in this case. In the Court's view, this requires a new trial on damages."
Nonetheless, he was scathing about both Apple and PanOptis, neither of which raised the thorny issue of FRAND terms during the jury trial. Doing so prevented the jury from determining whether PanOptis's licensing terms were FRAND compliant, and whether Apple engaged with the licensing process in good faith.
"The unique posture of the jury trial followed by the bench trial with respect to FRAND issues resulted from a series of intentional decisions made by both parties," Gilstrap said.
Acquired by investment firm Brevet Capital [4]in 2019 , PanOptis owns a significant chunk of patents pertaining to wireless and cellular communications, which are held by three subsidiaries: Optis Cellular Technology, Optis Wireless Technology, and Optis Unwired Planet.
Panoptis had previously sparred with Apple, securing an undisclosed settlement in a 2017 patent battle. It has also won cases against Samsung and Huawei, to name but a few.
This isn't the only recent patent loss for Apple. In March 2020, the company [5]paid $454m to VirnetX over allegations the FaceTime video chat software infringed intellectual property following a nearly decade-long legal slog.
FaceTime has also been the focus of another brutal patent fight with Japanese electronics manufacturer Maxell, which in February [6]accused Apple of violating 12 of its patents following similar suits in 2019 and [7]2020 .
And that's without mentioning the ongoing legal catfight with Fortnite dev Epic over Apple's stewardship of the App Store, which continues to rumble on. Earlier this week, Epic [8]raised a $1bn funding round , giving the partially Tencent-owned developer an equity valuation of $28.7bn. Of this, $200m came from Sony, with the rest provided by a smattering of pension funds and investment houses.
[9]
Epic could conceivably use this to continue its fight until the bitter end, as well as support [10]lobbying efforts in statehouses in order to pass legislation that would force Apple to open up its control of the App Store. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/04/15/2-19-cv-00066-j.pdf
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YHm0l00XJIctwlhzmxOLbAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YHm0l00XJIctwlhzmxOLbAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190211005472/en/Brevet-Capital-Purchases-PanOptis
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/28/apple_virnetx_fine/
[6] https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/20/maxell-sues-apple-again-over-facetime-and-other-iphone-features
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/30/judge_approves_special_apple_review/
[8] https://news.crunchbase.com/news/fortnite-maker-epic-games-raises-1-78b/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YHm0l00XJIctwlhzmxOLbAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/17/epic_apple_north_dakota_eu/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: The only people who will win here- are the lawyers........
Well, no - Apple will 'win' if they end up paying less. The others will 'win' if they award stays substantially the same. The amount of the fees paid to the lawyers will be a tiny fraction of the amounts at stake.
The lawyers earn their money by being good at what they do and, like a game of chess, preparing in advance for a lot of contingencies, 90% of which don't happen. I suspect Apple wouldn't pay them if they wanted to use D.Hick & Sons for 50p/hr instead.
Let's get over the 'all lawyers are evil' crap, please.
AFAICS from TFA the reason the jury weren't instructed was because it wasn't raised in that trial. If it's important to Apple's case why didn't their lawyers raise it initially? Weren't they instructed? If not it seems a bit late to be raising it now.
Because Fair and Reasonable apply to Apple as well as PanOptis. By not paying royalties and seeking to pay lower royalties than other parties they were not being either fair or reasonable.
I could be completely wrong but if Apple's lawyers thought they were going to win the original case without mentioning FRAND then it's not necessarily a bad strategy to hold that back and so if they did lose (as they did), they could plead for a retrial (or at least what they've now got).
This was the plan - Apple's lawyers were hoping they'd pay nothing, and if not, ask for a retrial - which has happened.
Whether PanOptis's licensing terms were FRAND compliant, and whether Apple engaged with the licensing process in good faith?
I wonder if that will turn out to be a yes for PanOptis and a no for Apple?
We need a patent court
What we really need is a special patent court that would handle all matters of patent disputes. This would prevent court-shopping and lengthy trials. The patent court would first determine if the patent applies. If that is true, then the court would then determine if a company knowingly violated a patent. The burden of proof would be on the patent owner. A company who used someone else's patent in ignorance would pay less damages. The patent court decision would be final, no appeal. The judges in the patent court all be trained in patent law and the ones on each case would be trained in the field they are presiding over. And both the patent owner and the one accused of breaking the patent can submit a case to the patent court. If, for instance, "Bob's Shell Company" accused Microsoft of breaking a patent, Microsoft could take the issue to the patent court to resolve the matter.
Of course, in my ideal world, the patent court would determine, before anything else, if the patent is even valid. Is there prior art? Is it an obvious solution? Is it so vague that it could be many different things?
Re: We need a patent court
The judges in the patent court all be trained in patent law and the ones on each case would be trained in the field they are presiding over.
Indeed ...
From what I see, it would seem that the judge involved in the original ruling may have had little or no knowledge of SEPs and FRAND, otherwise he would have asked.
Yes?
In my profession, I've been involved in a couple of lawsuits where the judges presiding did not have a clue as to what was being disputed, basically not understanding what had really happened.
Nor did they want to take the time to understand, no matter how simple, detailed or just basic common sense the explanation put forth was.
As expected, the lazy bastards ruled accordingly.
O.
Re: We need a patent court
We need to overhaul the patent system. It probably wouldn't work but I think a patent should only be awarded with a working prototype. You can't just patent a good idea and wait for someone to trip over it, there needs to be a working prototype. Especially in areas of chip designing where people who are unable to build or design a chip suddenly seem to have a patent on how something works by purely dreaming it up.
The only people who will win here- are the lawyers........
Its yet another instance of regardless of who wins or looses- the only people with money in the bank at the end of the day- will be the lawyers............