It seems that court judges have finally had enough of Apple v Samsung.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/judge-tells-apple-and-samsung-to-narrow-their-new-patent-case/
The article begins with a rather interesting morsel of food for thought: patent litigation takes so long in court, that by the time a verdict is reached (and way before any money is paid) the generation of technology it refers to is already obsolete. This is undoubtedly a result of the ridiculously fast pace of the mobile market.
And as a result of this, new lawsuits are filed every year. For every generation of smartphones and tablets. Because obviously someone is infringing on someone else's patents all the time. So it looks like Judge Lucy Koh has finally had enough of it, telling Apple and Samsung to cut out the filler and narrow the case down to only the most important sections. She refuses to move ahead unless the case gets smaller.
Hopefully behavior like that of Judge Koh will discourage so much patent litigation in the future. I personally think that she is making a very smart and bold move, which could reduce the number of lawsuits in the field if other judges follow her footsteps. Hopefully mobile tech companies could begin worrying more about their products and less about their lawsuits.
I love arstechnica! It's interesting (and good) that a judge would focus on just that's important. How is "important" qualified? This seems to be difficult thing to answer since perhaps the most critical parts of the phone or tablet aren't necessarily the most expensive or innovation aspects of these mobile devices.
ReplyDeletePretty interested precedent by Judge Koh to slow down mega corporate lawsuits that have pages and pages of claims and seek compensation for damages in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you think this would also slow down patent trolls, who might file many individual cases that are just contesting one or two patents?
ReplyDeleteYeah it's pretty awesome! I hope that in the future, judges won't entertain silly patent lawsuits like this one.
ReplyDelete