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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Apple and Broadcom have been told to pay the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) a beefy billion bucks for ripping off three of the US university's Wi-Fi patents. A federal jury in Cali decided on Wednesday that technology described in the data signal encoding patents owned by Caltech is used in millions of iPhones without wireless chip designer Broadcom nor phone slinger Apple paying the necessary licensing fees. Broadcom supplies radio communications components to Apple for various iThings.
The jury took just under five hours to decide its $1.1bn patent-infringement prize following a two-week trial, with Apple being forced to pick up the bulk of the damages, $837m, compared to Broadcom's $270m. The figures were what Caltech asked for.
[...] Despite the massive award, the news had no noticeable impact on Apple's share price coming a day after it announced better-than-expected results. Broadcom's slipped just a quarter of a per cent.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday January 30 2020, @06:49PM
If two people independently invent something, about the same time (within some short time frame), then yes they should have equal rights -- as long as those patent rights are ZERO.
eg, NO PATENT
If two people independently invent the same thing, this is evidence that it is "obvious to someone skilled in the art". And a third, and fourth, etc would have done the same thing at that same point in history. If Amazon hadn't done 1-click purchase, then someone else would have. It's not that much of a stretch to think of if you're brainstorming about how to make purchasing easier.
Patents are supposed to be for things that are NOT obvious. Something ingenious.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.