Apple spared from paying a day's revenue in patent damages bout

Apple will not have to cough up the $533m (£347.61m) in damages it was on the hook for after losing a patent infringement battle. Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Texas US Eastern District Court said the jury in an iTunes software patent trial was wrong to come up with the nine-digit sum. He said the figure should be reconsidered …

[Anonymous Coward]

HQ in Tyler, TX?

So for once suing in the patent-friendly East Texas court was legitimate!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: HQ in Tyler, TX?

It depends. Did they start there, or did they move there prior to filing the suit?

[Eddy Ito]

Re: HQ in Tyler, TX?

According to the first patent it seems Smart Flash Ltd was in East Sussex and according to the LLC filing on this side of the pond they started in Tyler on 26 April 2013 which is a few days before filing this lawsuit in May.

Should I mention that their address of 100 E. Ferguson is one whole block from the Federal courthouse? Oh, I guess I just did.

[I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects]

Does it matter?

The apple is worm laden

[Mark 85]

Maybe it could go the other way and cost them more. But then, with that kind of war chest they have, Apple can hire a lot of lawyers and keep this tied up in courts for eons. Ok.. maybe not eons but decades.

[Roland6]

Well given the Court has no real knowledge of how the Jury agreed on the damages figure, lets hope the new trial jury decide to stick two fingers up to both the judge, for effectively interfering with a jury and Apple for also trying to game the system, by awarding an even higher level of damages...

[Steve Davies 3]

Blame De-Judge

for getting his instructions to the Jury wrong.

That alone is a clear case for an appeal so a little bit of Kudos is due to the Judge for pre-empting that.

[Roland6]

Re: Blame De-Judge

Be interested to see a transcript of the case as it seems no one is actually giving any details just what was wrong with the original instructions, I therefore suspect Apple have gambled on an interpretation of the transcript based on a legal technicality.

[Sirius Lee]

Exchange rate

$58bn (£378.26bn)

I know USD has strengthed in recent weeks but in this case I think you have the decimal point in the wrong place.

[Aqua Marina]

He said the figure should be reconsidered

Forgive my ignorance on US law, but is it possible in these instances that the jury can reconsider the figure as directed by the judge, and still decide on exactly the same sum?

[Mark 85]

Re: He said the figure should be reconsidered

Very possible. It go up, down, or remain the same.