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A Texas jury has ordered Apple to pay VirnetX $302.4 million for patent infringement:
This was the third trial in a case that began in 2010. An appeals court upheld a portion of the first verdict, which found Apple's VOD infringed two patents, leaving the jury only to determine how much Apple should pay. Separately, the appeals court ordered a reconsideration of whether FaceTime infringed two other patents. The last time a jury heard the case -- the second trial -- VirnetX was awarded $625.6 million, though that also involved newer versions of the two Apple products. A trial judge threw out that case in July, saying it was unfair to Apple to combine all the issues.
The amount was on point with what VirnetX argued it was entitled to during Sept. 26 opening arguments, based on the billions of dollars worth of products sold by Cupertino, California-based Apple. The iPhone maker countered that VirnetX was entitled to no more than $25 million. VirnetX, which had 20 full- and part-time employees as of Dec. 31, has been unsuccessful in marketing its own software and relies on patent licensing for revenue. Its last big payout was from a $23 million settlement with Microsoft Corp. announced in December 2014.
Also at Reuters.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @03:24PM
Maybe if enough big corporations start losing these types of patent verdicts they may actually make an effort to actually fix the broken patent system they created.
Or maybe Apple is more than happy to pay these verdicts because it funds patent trolls and they know little competitors don't have a chance at entering the market against these patent trolls and the fact that it's not Apple directly suing for infringement keeps their hands clean in the PR part of it and lets other people do all of their dirty work for them. It's Apple's way of paying for these patent trolls to do all their dirty work for them.