Althouse: Apple owes us $862 million.

October 15, 2015

Apple owes us $862 million.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison won a big lawsuit.

42 comments:

TosaGuy said...: So will the taxpayers of Wisconsin benefit from this? Didn't think so.

So the complaints about a budget cut to UW will stop now? Didn't think so.

Will UW-Madison share this with the other colleges in the system who actually may need the money? Didn't think so.

Will this impact Apple's stock price? It's up today so don't think so.; 10/15/15, 11:40 AM
Anonymous said...: Where did the lead plaintiff's attorney go to law school? If it was UWM, the law school just paid for itself for the next 100 years.; 10/15/15, 11:44 AM
Tank said...: Apple could be in serious trouble, after a US jury on Tuesday discovered that the company had been using technology owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s licensing arm without permission in chips found in many of its iPhones and iPads.

So, this Jury has an investigation arm?; 10/15/15, 11:45 AM
Curious George said...: Cool. You can start paying the rest of us back.; 10/15/15, 11:46 AM
SteveR said...: I could be going out on a limb here but I think there will be a settlement.; 10/15/15, 11:46 AM
Nichevo said...: It says something about Apple request for an investigation, which was refused. Althouse, do you just want to root for the home team or actually dissect this case? Or the former disguised as the latter?; 10/15/15, 11:51 AM
MadisonMan said...: Where "Us" is WARF, an entity that is separate from the UW. We'll see what happens with the money, if any money ever does flow from Apple.; 10/15/15, 11:53 AM
MadisonMan said...: So will the taxpayers of Wisconsin benefit from this? Didn't think so.

I will argue that the taxpayers of Wisconsin have already benefited from it.; 10/15/15, 11:54 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I have no idea about which side has the better argument in a dispute involving patents relating to computers.; 10/15/15, 12:05 PM
David said...: Irell & Manella and Godfrey & Khan will take a bite out of that.; 10/15/15, 12:08 PM
garage mahal said...: How soon before Vos and Walker claim that the 600 million is theirs? "Slush fund!"

It would come in handy for roads they can't find the money for.; 10/15/15, 12:15 PM
Etienne said...: There is no basis in law for assuming that software methods are patentable, but some dubious legal rulings issued by the Federal Circuit after its inception in the 1980s have created legal precedents for software patentability.

patent reform coalition aims to abolish software patents, 2008 Article.; 10/15/15, 12:20 PM
Curious George said...: "garage mahal said...
How soon before Vos and Walker claim that the 600 million is theirs? "Slush fund!"

It would come in handy for roads they can't find the money for."

LOL. Remember Doyle and the Democratic controlled legislature stealing $1.3 billion from the transportation fund? That's why they can't find the money for road projects.; 10/15/15, 12:28 PM
garage mahal said...: Doyle! Drink!

Here we were told we had a 500 million dollar surplus. Hmmph.; 10/15/15, 12:33 PM
Fernandinande said...: We claim:
"1. In a processor capable of executing program instructions in an execution order differing from their program order, the processor further having a data speculation circuit for detecting data dependence between instructions and detecting a mis-speculation where a data consuming instruction dependent for its data on a data producing instruction of earlier program order, is in fact executed before the data producing instruction, a data speculation decision circuit comprising:"; 10/15/15, 12:35 PM
Fernandinande said...: What is WARF’s relationship with UW–Madison?
"WARF is a separate, independent 501(c)3 foundation which serves as the dedicated patenting and licensing organization for UW–Madison. WARF partners with UW–Madison to generate new knowledge and support long-term research opportunities. WARF is not a private foundation, but a functionally integrated supporting organization. WARF is self-sufficient and covers all the costs of patenting, licensing and helping commercialize technology assigned to WARF by faculty, staff and students. This saves taxpayers millions of dollars annually as such expenses would be otherwise paid by the university."; 10/15/15, 12:37 PM
MadisonMan said...: What happened with the Tobacco Settlement money? Vanished.

Give money to the state and they spend it.

Therefore, don't give money to the state.; 10/15/15, 12:38 PM
TosaGuy said...: We were told that cuts to the UW system would destroy research funding, but since it is covered by a self-sufficient, separate entity that talking point was false.; 10/15/15, 12:44 PM
TosaGuy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/15/15, 12:44 PM
Nichevo said...: So the former, ok that's fine, thanks for your honesty. Go team!; 10/15/15, 12:47 PM
Gusty Winds said...: Was there any chance a Madison jury was not going to rule in favor of UW?; 10/15/15, 1:19 PM
T J Sawyer said...: From the article:

"The Cupertino giant has that the patent is valid"

Modern journalism. Who knows what their defense might be.; 10/15/15, 1:24 PM
David Begley said...: Don't expect a check anytime soon. Ask VHC.; 10/15/15, 1:34 PM
Curious George said...: "garage mahal said...
Doyle! Drink!

Here we were told we had a 500 million dollar surplus. Hmmph."

Lots of road projects get kicked down the road when the transportation fund is used for social programs Corky. But nice try.; 10/15/15, 1:36 PM
James Pawlak said...: Did that award grant FULL attorney's fees and court costs? If not, how much of that judgement is eaten up by such?

WARF: Has a poor record of marketing the discoveries under its control; And, feeds on itself rather than using income to control the cancerous increases in tuition.; 10/15/15, 1:42 PM
Mark said...: WARF is not supposed to be kicking in money for tuition. Sadly, Althouse headlined this blog post poorly and reinforced the mistaken notion that this money belongs to UW.

I tend to think she meant the misunderstanding to occur.; 10/15/15, 2:05 PM
MadisonMan said...: Was there any chance a Madison jury was not going to rule in favor of UW?

I confess I had a similar thought.

Time will tell what happens. I doubt WARF is spending the money -- not until they have it.; 10/15/15, 3:18 PM
David Begley said...: You Badgers won't see any money for at least two years. Maybe three.; 10/15/15, 3:23 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: I'm surprised the plaintiff's attorney wasn't constantly objected-to for...badgering the witness.; 10/15/15, 3:28 PM
Alexander said...: Curious: In this particular case, how does UW feel about:

- you didn't design that
- at some point, you have enough
- information wants to be free; 10/15/15, 3:42 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, could you perhaps find out which professor(s) in comp. sci. and/or EE were responsible for coming up with the idea? I know a few of the Wisconsin CS professors.; 10/15/15, 3:48 PM
traditionalguy said...: Great work you mighty warrior lawyers. Give one lawyer twelve jurors and a
Judge and stand back and watch.

All the Apellate Courts in the world cannot undo what that lawyer just did. Not unless they make up a different set of facts to reverse him for the big Banks.; 10/15/15, 4:33 PM
MadisonMan said...: Gurindar Sohi was one of them. (Link); 10/15/15, 4:34 PM
MadisonMan said...: Better link: Here. From that link:

UW-Madison researchers named on the patent are Sohi, Andreas Moshovos, Scott Breach and Terani Vijaykumar.

Top. Men.; 10/15/15, 4:35 PM
David Begley said...: TraditionalGuy.

Patent appellate litigation in major turmoil.

SCOTUS accepting cert on many cases. Smacking CAFC around.

VHC jury verdict affirmed and reversed by CAFC. Damages part of the decision is a mess.; 10/15/15, 4:52 PM
David Begley said...: I hope all you Badgers realize that some people would call the University of Wisconsin a patent troll.

Name calling is so wrong.; 10/15/15, 6:33 PM
Unknown said...: They held a jury trial in MADISON to decide if Apple owes the U of W money?
Can you say biased????; 10/15/15, 8:52 PM
mikee said...: In July 2015, Apple had $203,000,000,000 in cash reserves.

I don't think the Apple corporate suite is in turmoil over this court decision, which is somewhere in the rounding error of that amount of money.

If Apple loses about 250 similar lawsuits this year their cash reserves are all used up!; 10/15/15, 9:02 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Fernandinande - looks Ike a clai for speculative execution. By the time this issued, it was fairly well established. Think of it this way - normally a processor executes code in sequential order until a jump of some sort is executed. Even back in the late 1970s, there were processors that could be executing several threads at the same time, synchronized by either register or memory accesses. What was interesting here with speculative execution is that a processor would come up on a jump, and if it was conditional, start executing down both threads until the branch condition is determined, and then the results of the non-selected branch are discarded. Part of why this was useful is that gates on processor chips were going up much faster than cycle times or memory access times. This was a way to goose execution speed a bit w/o increasing cycle times, taking advantage of more and more being able to be done in parallel (on a SISD processor).; 10/15/15, 9:26 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: It says something about Apple request for an investigation, which was refused.

My guess is that this was really an attempt to initiate post-grant review, which is somewhat discretionary by the USPTO or PO Director. This was added by the America disInvents Act (AIA) enacted a couple years ago. My memory is that you need a new issue of patent ability to trigger the review, and they may not have been able to show it. Absent that, it is going to be an uphill fight to invalidate the patent, because the standard is clear and convincing evidence. The USPTO is legally assumed to have done its job in examining a patent application unless there is relevant prior art that was not considered by the examiner during prosecution. No new issues of patent ability implies that no new prior art was presented by the defendant (Apple) that was more relevant than what was considered by the examiner.; 10/15/15, 9:38 PM
Achilles said...: mikee said...
"In July 2015, Apple had $203,000,000,000 in cash reserves.

I don't think the Apple corporate suite is in turmoil over this court decision, which is somewhere in the rounding error of that amount of money.

If Apple loses about 250 similar lawsuits this year their cash reserves are all used up!"

Why, they have so much money, they should just give everyone some!; 10/15/15, 11:39 PM
mikee said...: Achilles, I'd rather they give me all of it, but that isn't happening either.

So let's split it just between us two!; 10/16/15, 10:11 AM