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The Courts Patents Apple

Apple Loses Second Bid To Challenge Qualcomm Patents At US Supreme Court (reuters.com) 22

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday again declined to hear Apple's bid to revive an effort to cancel three Qualcomm smartphone patents despite the settlement of the underlying dispute between the two tech giants. Reuters reports: The justices left in place a lower court's decision against Apple after similarly turning away in June the company's appeal of a lower court ruling in a closely related case challenging two other Qualcomm patents. Qualcomm sued Apple in San Diego federal court in 2017, arguing that its iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches infringed a variety of mobile-technology patents. That case was part of a broader global dispute between the tech giants. Apple challenged the validity of the patents at issue in this case at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

The companies settled their underlying fight in 2019, signing an agreement worth billions of dollars that let Apple continue using Qualcomm chips in iPhones. The settlement included an Apple license to thousands of Qualcomm patents, but allowed the patent-board proceedings to continue. The board upheld the patents in 2020, and Apple appealed to the patent-specialist U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Cupertino, California-based Apple argued it had proper legal standing to appeal because San Diego-based Qualcomm could sue again after the license expires, potentially as soon as 2025.

A Federal Circuit three-judge panel, in a 2-1 ruling, dismissed the case last year for a lack of standing, finding that Apple's risk of being sued again was speculative and the challenge would not affect its payment obligations under the settlement. Qualcomm has again argued that Apple has not shown a concrete injury to justify the appeal, just like in the "materially identical" case that the high court rejected.

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Apple Loses Second Bid To Challenge Qualcomm Patents At US Supreme Court

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  • So they didn't rule on the validity of the patent, they ruled that Apple wasn't eligible to challenge the patient (standing == eligibility).

    Apple is free to challenge the patent validity when they are out of license.

    • Patents should be challengable by anyone, anytime. Apple was outsmarted. The can bankroll someone else , much like the SCO saga. Or they can say 'We are not building a factory in America, because the patent office makes the business case un-viable'. That's what you get for rounded corners.
      • Patents should be challengable by anyone, anytime.

        They are.
        This isn't a patent challenge, it's a legal suit, and in legal suits- standing matters.

        Apple is not challenging the patent, they are suing to overturn the PTO's decision in Qualcomm's favor.

        • Apple is not challenging the patent, they are suing to overturn the PTO's decision in Qualcomm's favor.

          Except Apple IS challenging the patent. The USPTO upheld the patents, so Apple took the review to an appeals court. The appeals court ruled that there's no standing.

          • I suppose I'll repeat myself.

            Apple is not challenging the patent, which is an administrative process through the PTO.
            Apple is filing civil suit to overturn the PTO, where standing matters.
  • Great artists steal. (Score:4, Informative)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Monday October 03, 2022 @10:13PM (#62935611)

    "We have, you know, always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Apple's problem is that they have a lot of design patents and not a lot of technology patents. Qualcomm doesn't care about design patents, and clearly has the better technology patent portfolio. So instead of the usual patent swap deal, Apple has to pay cash.

    • by CODiNE ( 27417 )

      This quote has a deeper meaning that unfortunately applies to art and not patents. The full quote is:

      Good artists copy, great artists steal.

      Well actually there's an older version of it that goes

      Immature artists copy, great artists steal.

      This is probably what Steve was paraphrasing, which was based on an earlier saying

      A good composer does not imitate; he steals

      The basic meaning is that an artist should not simply copy the works of others but instead like Microsoft, embrace and extend the style. A great deve

  • I forgot what these patents about and the patent numbers are nowhere in the article or summary.

    This is therefore a garbage article and a garbage summary

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