decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
Apple's Game Revealed in Apple v. Samsung Post-Trial Skirmishes ~pj | 293 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Apple's Game Revealed in Apple v. Samsung Post-Trial Skirmishes ~pj
Authored by: PJ on Saturday, April 20 2013 @ 09:15 AM EDT
For example, from the docket:
3/3/2006 - 464 - ORDER that this matter is settled, and by stipulation of the parties, this action is hereby DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Signed by Judge James R. Spencer on 3/3/06. (scoo, ) (Entered: 03/03/2006)

3/3/2006 - 463 - ORDER RELEASING ESCROW FUNDS, that $612.5 million from the funds in the escrow account established by this Court's order of March 11, 2003 shall be immediately transferred via wire transfer to the following: Citibank, N.A., ABA 021000089, FBO Citigroup Global Markets, Inc., A/C #30604518, FFC to NTP Inc. at Smith Barney, A/C #401-30382-13-501. Signed by Judge James R. Spencer on 3/3/06. (scoo, ) (Entered: 03/03/2006)

2/27/2006 - 462 - ORDER denying 443 Motion to have recently Produced United States Patent and Trademark Office documents entered into the record. Signed by Judge James R. Spencer on 2/27/06. (scoo, ) Modified on 2/27/2006 to correct the spelling of Patent (scoo, ). (Entered: 02/27/2006)

The judge simply refused to allow any delay to let the prior art be considered. In that way, he force d RIM to pay millions that it didn't believe it owed for patents that so far turned out to be invalid by threatening an injunction against RIM. There is an appeal on some.

Part of the judge's problem, as far as I can see, was that he himself had already ruled on summary judgment, prior to the jury's verdict, that RIM was guilty of infringement of some of the patents. He also ultimately decided it was willful, despite RIM's inhouse attorney having examined the claims when they first were received and deciding that they did not infringe/or were invalid patents. As indeed they turned out to be. But he just wouldn't give RIM the time of day, and in his rush to judgment, this is what he missed, as the Federal Circuit eventually noted:

Interestingly, though, the Federal Circuit did agree to a rehearing of its earlier decision and issued a second decision in August of 2005. In that decision lies a fairly complex effect resulting from the confluence of U.S. patents and international law. The problem is that although BlackBerry devices are sold in the United States, RIM and its relay station for sending e-mail wirelessly are both located in Canada. In general, U.S. patents like NTP's do not extend to most activities conducted outside the United States. Moreover, the patents only covered complete systems and methods for wireless e-mail; not the BlackBerry device itself, which is only a component of the system.

NTP had made the problem even more complex by phrasing some of its patent claims as "system" type, covering the various components of a wireless e-mail structure (such as gateway switches and radio frequency transmission networks), while others were of the "method" type. Rather than listing components, method claims list steps associated with running a system, reciting action verbs like "transmitting."

The Federal Circuit held that RIM put the patented system into use in the United States (even though the relay is in Canada), but not the method, since the relay utilization doesn't occur in the States. In the United States, patent infringement takes place when the product in question is imported into, or sold in the country. But what if the invention is a method? How do you import or sell it? Difficult question. When a method is applied outside U.S. borders to make a product that is shipped into the country, there can be patent infringement--but data and information don't really constitute products under U.S. patent laws.

The result was that RIM didn't infringe NTP's six method-type claims but did infringe seven system-type claims. And because of Spencer's incorrect interpretation of system-type claims, the Federal Circuit remanded the case back to him to determine if RIM infringed three other NTP claims of that type.

So his characterization that RIM was willful was simply wrong, because he was wrong about these patents and whether RIM was infringing on at least some of them. Believe it or not, the judge, when he got the case back, still refused to stay the case despite the US government agreeing with RIM that he should.

Meanwhile the USPTO continued its reexams, the ones that the judge wouldn't wait for. But the problem for RIM was the same as the one facing Samsung, that if the reexams prove the patents invalid after all, but only after final judgment, then the injunction, if ordered, would remain good on the products enjoined. Not fair, but that is the choice that the judge forced on RIM. Whatever tricks or not tricks RIM might have seemed to the judge to have used at trial can't possibly compare to what this judge did to RIM, in my view. And we are talking about software patents to boot.

I mention all this because you keep commenting on this case that the judge ruled this or that, but the full record should raise serious questions in anyone's mind as to the judge's judgment in this litigation, whether he got things right. And since he clearly didn't in at least one instance and yet refused to alter course, one might even wonder if he had a bias or some issue that made it hard for him to be fair. I don't know, but I do know that posting that RIM misbehaved and that this is why the judge did what he did and was justified in so doing is stretching the facts. So please stop doing that.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )