Apple will appeal $27m patent court loss
Apple, the object of many lawsuits as are most major corporations, has appealed a decision that would cost it almost $22 million in a cache memory algorithm patent infringement case.
A company named OPTi was awarded the money when a Texas court agreed with their suit that Apple had violated three claims against their patent, which describes a system for predictive “snooping†of cache memory, a process that helps shuttle information among a processor, its memory, and other elements of a computer, according to an AppleInsider story. All of this helps the computer operate more efficiently and faster.
Most major corporations are sued frequently by smaller companies. Like John Dillinger said about banks, that’s where the money is if you’re a lawyer. Moreover, patent suits are often filed in the Eastern District of Texas, where this OPTi suit was filed, because that court often hands down rulings favorable to the plaintiff. For this reason, it was not odd to see the favorable judgement for OPTi or the appeal by Apple, which was filed on Dec. 4. This case is just one of almost 50 patent infringement lawsuits against which Apple is currently defending itself.
To make matters worse, it has been reported that OPTi’s only business at this point is the filing of lawsuits for patent infringement. OPTi has a similar, and long term, lawsuit against CPU maker AMD, which was filed in July of 2007. OPTi’s suits in both these cases relate to the ownership of patent No. 6,405,291. The suit against Apple was first filed in January of 2007. It would appear that OPTi may have taken an already litigious American legal preponderance to a new extreme. After long trials and large expenses, many of these suits come to naught. The only people that consistently do well in most of these cases are the attorneys.
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