We talked at length this week about these "patent-trolls" who are also known as patent-holding firms. What these firms do is purse litigation options against big companies that they feel infringed on their patents. What happens to these firms is usually the same, the come to an agreement with the larger corporation and the battle stops there. But every once in a while one causes a stir. So is the case between Apple and IPCom.
IPCom is a German patent-holding firm that only recently acquired their patents in 2007 from a private seller. Now Apple is being sued for upwards of two million dollars by the firm who claims that Apple infringed on their patents. To break down how much two million dollars is for a firm like Apple in Germany; the article cited a source to have said that that was approximately 51 percent of Apple's revenue in Germany. It suddenly makes sense why Apple would not handle his specific situation quietly like they do with most patent trolls.
In fact, Apple is so intent on winning this skirmish with the Bavarian firm that they are citing minute technicalities to swing the judgement in their favor. When you get down to the engineering level, the patent dispute is essentially over a mere bit of data. IPCom's Patent covers a single bit of data achieveing a task while Apple's technology employs three bits of data to achieve the same task.
Based off of technicalities alone, it seems that Apple is correct; and they should not in my opinion make any reparations to this patent-troll. But this whole situation just affirms on how petty this patent war has become.
You can reference the full article on the Wall Street Journal below:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/11/bit-by-bit-apple-fights-patent-infringement-claim/
IPCom is a German patent-holding firm that only recently acquired their patents in 2007 from a private seller. Now Apple is being sued for upwards of two million dollars by the firm who claims that Apple infringed on their patents. To break down how much two million dollars is for a firm like Apple in Germany; the article cited a source to have said that that was approximately 51 percent of Apple's revenue in Germany. It suddenly makes sense why Apple would not handle his specific situation quietly like they do with most patent trolls.
In fact, Apple is so intent on winning this skirmish with the Bavarian firm that they are citing minute technicalities to swing the judgement in their favor. When you get down to the engineering level, the patent dispute is essentially over a mere bit of data. IPCom's Patent covers a single bit of data achieveing a task while Apple's technology employs three bits of data to achieve the same task.
Based off of technicalities alone, it seems that Apple is correct; and they should not in my opinion make any reparations to this patent-troll. But this whole situation just affirms on how petty this patent war has become.
You can reference the full article on the Wall Street Journal below:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/11/bit-by-bit-apple-fights-patent-infringement-claim/
No comments:
Post a Comment