Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has won a court appeal in a case that had slammed the company with a $625.5 million patent-infringement that was handed down in October. The case itself claimed that Apple had infringed on patents held by Mirror World LLC with their implementation of Cover Flow, Time Machine, and Spotlight search. […]
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Court Rules in Favor of Apple in Patent Dispute Appeal

Apr 5th 2011 by

spotlight_icon.jpgBloomberg is reporting that Apple has won a court appeal in a case that had slammed the company with a $625.5 million patent-infringement that was handed down in October. The case itself claimed that Apple had infringed on patents held by Mirror World LLC with their implementation of Cover Flow, Time Machine, and Spotlight search.
Here’s an excerpt:

A federal judge in Tyler, Texas, today said Apple didn’t infringe a patent owned by Mirror Worlds LLC and closed the case in Apple’s favor. The court also said the damage award was too high. The judge did uphold the validity of the three Mirror Worlds patents.

This whole thing boiled down to $208.5 million, per patent, in damages. Which, even with Apple’s ~$60 billion in revenue would still sting. The thing is, and I know none of the particulars, I can’t tell if this was a case of Apple being a massive corporation and steamrolling over the little guys, or if these were patent trolls looking for a quick buck. But, that’s what it always boils down to doesn’t it?

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