Apple Saves $300 Million After Appeals Court Win in LTE Patent Fight

What about Optis makes you think they're a troll?

- The lawsuit is clearly not just a nuisance suit asking for cost-of-litigation settlement. The economics are clearly based on real value of the patented contributions to the LTE standard.
- The patents came out of LG, Panasonic, and Samsung. These are real bona-fide innovators that contributed real bona-fide innovations to LTE.
- The patents survived numerous validity challenges at both the district court and the (notoriously defendant-friendly) PTAB. Apple spent millions trying to invalidate them and failed. It is beyond dispute now that the patents are good and valid.
- To get to trial, the suit had to survive several offramps and narrowing. Rule 11, motions to dismiss, motions for summary judgement, claim construction, motions for judgement as a matter of law, etc. To get this far, a plaintiff has to run the table on every issue. But a defendant has to only win one issue to wipe it all away.

All of this is not proof that Optis is right and deserves $500M. Rather, it is evidence that Optis is not merely just a troll.

Optis doesn't invent anything but instead buys up patents with the specific intent to file lawsuits against companies they allege to be infringing them.

They're trolls.

Ugh patent trolls. I do understand the need and usefulness of patents, and the subsequent protection on them. And I do understand that you can’t always (directly) use a patent. But these trolls have made a business model out of filing as many useless patents without any intent of ever developing a useful product or service and the start litigating everybody into oblivion.

What about Optis makes you think they're a troll?

They don't make anything. That carries a lot of weight in how I decide whether an entity is a patent troll or not. Having an idea is good, but going after others because they made that idea a reality? Come on, man.

As a patent holding company, Optis does not manufacture products, instead going after tech companies that may violate the patent portfolio that it owns.

Anyhow, I agree with the court's decision to overturn.

When appealing the initial ruling from the Eastern District Court of Texas, Apple argued that the court had not fairly separated the different patent claims that it allegedly violated, and only asked the jurors to determine if Apple violated any patents. The federal appeals court agreed with Apple, and said that the district court ruling provided incorrect jury instructions and violated Apple's Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial on each patent infringement claim.

Not surprising it's the Eastern District Court of Texas. Patent trolls love suing there because that court usually finds in favor of the patent trolls.

Man how do patent trolls live with themselves? They are the bottom of the barrel

First, Optis' specific intent is to license. Optis presented plenty of evidence that Apple refused to pay even FRAND rates. If an infringer sandbags you for years, what else are you to do? It is Apple that forced Optis into a lawsuit, not the other way around.

You just defined a patent troll. They buy patents just to extract money from people actually making things.

Second, all of you are applying an overly broad view of what a troll is.
- Is University of Wisconsin a troll because they own a lot of patents, don't make anything, and often litigate to get license fees? Under your definitions, almost all universities and research hospitals are patent trolls.
- What about independent R&D labs, such as Wilus in South Korea? They don't make anything, but they spend a ton on R&D and contribute real innovations that make cellular and wifi better, license their tech to implementors, and sue when implementors refuse to pay.

No, they are the ones developing the inventions, not buying patents from actual inventors so they can sue.

The other issue with such a broad view of trolls is it totally screws the inventors. There is nothing wrong with getting paid and selling your inventions. In Optis' case, LG, Panasonic, and Samsung do make real products and spent real money on R&D to develop that LTE tech. But each of LG, Panasonic, or Samsung have their legitimate reasons for not wanting to engage in the business of licensing. I don't blame them; licensing is risky and a distraction. Why is it so wrong to take the sure thing (whatever the market is willing to pay today) and let someone else do the licensing stuff?

It’s not wrong to sell or license patents, but I’d argue it is wrong to buy and weaponize them solely for litigation, which is what Optis does.

Man how do patent trolls live with themselves? They are the bottom of the barrel

Don’t know how they live with themselves but you can see that they live in the Eastern District of Texas where judges are related to the plaintiff’s attorneys and have no problem with enriching their relatives.