Katie Marsal
The court found that Apple did not violate patents that were owned by Mirror Worlds, a company founded by Yale university computer science Professor David Gelerntner, according to Bloomberg. Mirror Worlds first sued Apple in 2008.
Tuesday's decision was yet another major comeback victory for Apple in its litigation with Mirror Worlds. Last year, Apple won a separate appeal reversing a jury reward of $625.5 million in damages, though that judge upheld the validity of the three patents Apple was accused of violating.
But this week completely tossed the jury's 2010 verdict, negating both the damages and the infringement.
"The evidence was insufficient to support the jury's finding of infringement for all of the asserted claims," the appeals court wrote in its decision.
Mirror Worlds accused Apple of violating its patents with Spotlight, Time Machine and Cover Flow features in the OS X operating system for Mac. The patent holder argued that Apple's products infringed on patents related to how documents are displayed on a computer screen.
The initial complaint was filed in 2008 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Patent infringement suits are frequently filed there in hopes of a favorable outcome, which is precisely what Mirror Worlds was awarded by a jury in October of 2010. But Apple quickly appealed that ruling, setting the stage for the decision to be overturned.
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17 Comments
Take that, evil Professor Chaos!
[RIGHT]As I recall Apple bought the company that developed cover flow. [/RIGHT]
Yes, because Mirror Worlds is a known patent troll. They are a non-practicing entity. They in fact went bankrupt, and then sat on their patents in the hope of extorting money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_Worlds
Sometimes it is petty easy to see some level of similarity between a patent and how someone may have implemented an idea. However, I can not even begin to see the similarity in this one. When it first came up and even when the court rule for Mirror world the first time. I really thing the people who live in that location in TX have no clue and if you told them they were looking at pink bunnies they would agree.
Guess the Patent Troll Professor is going to be forced to get a job to pay all those lawyer bills.