OPTi wins $19m from Apple over patent infringement
updated 08:55 pm EDT, Thu April 23, 2009
OPTi wins patent suit
OPTi on Thursday won a patent infringement suit against Apple, including $19 million in damages. The patent involved "predictive snooping" of cache memory for transferring information between a CPU, memory and other components. The jury ruled that Apple willingly infringed on OPTi's patent. Apple attempted to bring doubt to the patent's validity, but the jury ruled the patent to be valid.
The case was heard at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. The court and particular judge, T. John Ward, oversee a disproportionate number of patent suits, leading some to believe that plaintiffs expect favorable results from the local juries. While most districts show a fairly level number of suits, Texas Eastern spiked from 14 cases in 2003 to an estimated 236 in 2006.
OPTi filed a similar suit against AMD over the same patents, and in the same court as the Apple case. "The Apple lawsuit is a part of the Company’s strategy for pursuing its patent infringement claims relating to its Predictive Snooping technology," a statement read. The company appears to be ready to expand its legal actions to "realize licensing revenue from its Predictive Snoop patents."
OPTi eliminated all of its manufacturing, distribution and sales assets in 2003, and now appears to rely on licensing revenue and damages awarded from successful lawsuits.
A rare loss for Apple
04/23, 11:05pm reply
in what appears to be a patent-portfolio-friendly court.
Assuming for the moment that Apple is guilty as charged, it's at least comforting to know that the "penalty" is money they could scrape up from behind the couch in Jobs' office. Seems almost like a "token" award to me.
chas_m
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
pay it and move on
04/23, 11:46pm reply
much ado...
jmonty12
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2003
Only in American...
04/23, 11:57pm reply
Only in America do we see a lawsuit happy society....
How bad is the economy getting when we see companies having to rely on winning lawsuits to "fund" their business operations. What kind of business model is that?
Look at the music companies and movie studios as a big example of how some companies rely on lawsuits to make money....
Aw heck, you can get sued just for being a good samaritan for pulling someone off of a busy road and on to the sidewalk only to have that person sue you for aggravating their injuries.
wilsonng
Senior User
Joined: Sep 2004
Patent
04/24, 01:55am reply
If you have a product and you licence the rights to that product or process it is perfectly legitimate to live off the income from that licencing process. How is this any different from drug companies? They don't actually make a lot of their medication, however, they sell the rights to do so to 3rd parties.
rytc
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2001
RE: Only in...
04/24, 11:01am reply
Look at the music companies and movie studios as a big example of how some companies rely on lawsuits to make money....
How much money is the Music and movie companies making from lawsuits? Oh, wait, very little. But why let that dissuade you from your argument, since there must be a way to link a patent infringement case to the RIAA.
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
Apple is...
04/24, 02:43pm (1 reply) reply
turning into another microsoft. Take what they want then pay when they get caught. This kind of c*** kills innovation because of big companies think they can do whatever they want by stealing. 19 million is chump change. Should have been made to pay more.
bearcatrp
Senior User
Joined: Dec 2005