Apple

As we have been writing about over the last several months, Tyler and East Texas are considered dumb hillbilly areas that offer large advantages for patent trolls to file patent infringement lawsuits and win.

Just a few months ago VirnetX of Tyler won $106 million against Microsoft so this is not at all uncommon around here.

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It was reported today that a federal jury in Tyler Texas awarded a company located in Tyler Texas by the name of Mirror Worlds LLC $625.5 million dollars as a judgement against Apple for infringing on their patents.

Of course if they really did do something wrong they should have to pay some type of penalty. What is often the case with patent outfits like this is to find that the company is simply a patent clearing house. The company buys up patents with the sole motive being to find large companies infringing on the patent and profit from lawsuits. Often a company like this hasn’t a single physical product they actually sell.

An example would be to where a patent company buys up some patents that they already know are being infringed upon with the express purpose of making income through litigation. These patent trolls do not wish to make something with the patent they bought but are looking to sue as many large corporations as they can.

You must also consider that it is not all bad what the patent troll is doing as some engineers and scientists that have made these patents contractually sell their patents to large patent companies like this to basically handle the litigation for them. So in a way these patent clearing houses offer a service to legitimate inventors of a product, software, or service that may or may not have ever been developed.

This patent trolling makes millions and millions of dollars for these companies as well as their lawyers. Not only does the patent troll need to open up a business in Tyler or East Texas to pursue litigation here but their lawyer must be local counsel.

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Although there will likely be a larger law firm outside of Tyler and possibly in another state working on the case they will retain local counsel here to pursue the matter in court.

There were 3 patents involved in this court case that Mirror Worlds LLC claim Apple infringed on. This comes out to $208.5 million per violation. Apple calls this lawsuit “triple dipping” if they actually collect all the 3 penalties.

The case is being appealed by Apple and will likely have some of the infringements and penalty’s knocked down and reduced but will still leave the patent troll company with millions of dollars for both themselves and their lawyers.

Once again Tyler Texas jury’s have proven to be gullible hillbilly idiots. My best guess is that most of the jury simply do not understand the complexities of the technological patents being discussed in court and are lulled into believing the patent trolls sob story.

The patents in the dispute were created by Yale professor David Gerlenter. David spun off Mirror Worlds Technologies from the university in 1996 and files the patents in 1999.

I imagine that the current Mirror Worlds LLC entity is no longer owned by the original patent owner, David Gerlenter but was bought by a patent troll. The patent troll than opened up an office in Tyler Texas in order to be able to sue from Tyler Texas so the lawsuit would be decided by an East Texas jury.

Patent Troll

By having patent litigation decided by a Tyler or East Texas judge and jury it is almost a guaranteed win for the patent troll company which is why I suspect Mirror World LLC opened up an office in Tyler Texas.

U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis is considering Apple’s request at this time that Apple does not infringe at least 2 of these patents. He will likely grant this request and lower the penalty amounts on at least 2 of the 3 infringement penalties.

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The judge will soon hear arguments now on the damages awarded in the case from both sides

Patent Trolling: Abusing The System?

Patent lawyers have taken over the patent trolling industry in a new way by going from an attorney who helps patent holders defend against other companies who are suing them in regards to an infringed patent to these same lawyers buying large swaths of patents themselves and suing companies. You see no one is in a better position to know just how lucrative it is to sue companies that are infringing on patents then the patent litigation attorneys who have both defended and fought and won many of these cases for other companies.

You would think an attorney that worked in the patent infringement industry and has seen all the abuse in this issue would work to reform the industry. This however is not the case and quite a few attorneys that have won and lost some very big patent infringement cases are trying to make revenue themselves by being patent owners. Kind of sounds like the old saying,  “if you can’t beat them join them”, to me.

If you think about it owning a patent is like owning a business and in this case an attorney fighting for these businesses is just an employee who makes a meager amount compared to the patent owning company or the large corporation fighting the lawsuit. The amount of money gets up into the hundreds of millions of dollars so for many this type of power and money is a legacy creating game changer.

Take Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards who was a mesothelioma cancer attorney. His law firm sued very large companies like Corning and others where workers were contaminated by asbestos created products. His law firm made hundreds of millions of dollars and he became wealthy in the process. He eventually became a senator for North Carolina. Coincidentally the Corning plant was an east Texas manufacturing company that was the main culprit in the asbestos poisoning of their workers.

Some of these patent attorneys that once defended companies against claims of infringements by the plaintiffs in a lawsuit are now also buying patents and going after several companies they may have once defended in the past. Considering this attorney will likely make several hundred million dollars in his lawsuits some would say that money has gotten the better of him. I don’t see how this type of thing should be allowed to continue as this would be an obvious and blatant abuse of the patent laws in the United States.

One of these attorneys that has gone from defending litigants to being a plaintiff has bought up over 4,500 patents from a company that makes computer-memory chips. He also has a new law firm that works along side his patent owning company in pursuing litigation against any and all companies that have infringed these patents.

It seems a bit hypocritical to go from defending many of these companies to suing them but hey what do I know I am not an attorney and I will probably never own a patent.