SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Apple has been found to infringe on patent #5,781,752, and has been ordered to pay half a billion dollars:
A judge has ordered Apple to pay $506 million to the research arm of the University of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, sued Apple in 2014, accusing its A7, A8, and A8X chips of infringing US Patent No. 5,781,752, which claims a type of "table based data speculation circuit." The following year after a trial, a Wisconsin jury found (PDF) that Apple had infringed the '752 patent and that it should pay $234 million in damages.
Yesterday's order (PDF), signed by US District Judge William Conley, more than doubles that amount. Conley awarded WARF $1.61 per unit for many of the iPad and iPhone devices that use the accused chips, up until the entry of judgment in October 2015. He also tacked on $2.74 per unit as a royalty payment covering the period from the date of judgment through December 26, 2016, which is when the '752 patent expired.
Also at The Verge, CNET, and AppleInsider.
Related: Caltech Sues Apple Over Alleged Wi-Fi Patent Infringement
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @03:09AM (4 children)
I'm not an Apple fan but Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) is a patent troll that produces no products, just goes around litigating other companies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @04:24AM
Citation needed...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @11:04AM
WARF was also founded on promoting synthetic vitamin D2 which is not as good as the real thing and so causing disease compared to sunlight and other natural sources of D3:
http://m.ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/4/694.full [nutrition.org]
Their promotion of Coumadin is also questionable compared to eating more vegetables with vitamin K.
http://www.warf.org/about-us/about-us.cmsx [warf.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
Calling all non-product-producing patent holders "patent troll" neuters the term. WARF represents thousands of former and current active researchers and makes it very clear what patents they hold, how much they license it for, and funnels that money right back into research, not into the pockets of glorified gamblers.
Now if you want to argue that discoveries at a public institution should be public domain, that could be a valuable discussion, but it still wouldn't make WARF a patent troll.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 28 2017, @11:37PM
Oddly, when the same patent troll claim is aimed at the Australian equivalent organization CSIRO, (famous for wifi patents), everyone comes rushing to their defense. But an American University, in a flyover state!? Money grubbing bastards.
Why does it seem that patent fees always have to be dragged out of Apple.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.