Judge overturns $625.5M patent suit against Apple

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal judge has overturned a federal jury's order that Apple Inc. pay $625.5 million in damages for violating patents held by a Mirror Worlds LLC, a small technology company.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis in Tyler, Texas, which was disclosed in a Monday court filing, dismisses one of the largest-ever patent infringement verdicts.

In his ruling Monday, the judge said that "Mirror Worlds may have painted an appealing picture for the jury, but failed to lay a solid foundation sufficient to support important elements it was required to establish under the law."

In October, a federal jury in Tyler determined that Apple infringed on three of Mirror Worlds' patents, which cover several features on Apple's Mac computers, iPhones and iPods. The technologies at issue include Cover Flow, which lets users flip through album covers and other content as if through a stack of cards; Time Machine, which performs automatic backups; and Spotlight, which is software for searching computer hard drives.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110405/D9MDN3SO0.html

[cstanleytech]

1. So, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[bemildred]

2. Hard to say for sure, but I have a low opinion of the idea of "software patents".

Software is the most ephemeral of things, and the patenting of "software ideas" seems like a bad idea, likely to slow rather than promote progress.