• Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7 days

    For perspective, the watch division makes between $35 to $40 billion annually.

  • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zipEnglish
    6 days

    Would be nice if the article had a link to the patent. Seems like a little journalistic effort would be worth it.

  • kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    6 days

    By the time Apple pays this, assuming they do. They will have made at least that much in extra profits from the original $5.7 billion by investing it.

    • FauxLiving@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6 days

      Sure, but they also have to pay interest on the balance starting at the moment the judgement was entered.

        • FauxLiving@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5 days

          On one hand, you could almost certainly earn a higher return than the court requires you to pay in interest… but, if you had 5.7 billion dollars to invest in that kind of play then a plaintiff would likely succeed in getting a court order to force you to pay.

  • Doomsider@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5 days

    Patents have become nothing more than a legal pretense for extortion. The system should absolutely be abolished as it currently stands.

    • reddig33@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6 days

      How is this good news? Haptic feedback has existed since the 1970s. This patent should be invalid.

      • timochka@lemmy.zipEnglish
        6 days

        The patent is not on haptic feedback. The patent is on a very specific means of implementing haptic feedback using ferrofluids and electromagnetic actuators that it is claimed (and Apple deemed it good enough to copy, so presumably truly) allows for both a smaller implementation than typical mechanical haptic feedback (i.e. the off-balance-flywheel approach of phones of old), while also allowing for low- or zero- noise compared to “speaker or piezo” based haptic feedback.

        There are a lot of shit patents in the world, but on a surface reading at least this seems sufficiently novel that I don’t see why it should be invalid. One also presumes that if Apple had any grounds to invalidate it on prior-art they would have done so.

        • reddig33@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 days

          So I looked into this and you are right and I am wrong. Deleting my previous posts since there’s more to this case than just haptics.

          • timochka@lemmy.zipEnglish
            6 days

            Well, all credit to you!

            Sometimes Lemmy can be surprising in a good way :^).

        • reddig33@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 days

          Rewarding a patent troll is never a good thing. It just means no one will be able to use haptic feedback without paying a toll.

            • Spur4383@lemmy.worldEnglish
              6 days

              They have one headphone license for one model from crossair, that is worth less money that what they spent on lawyers for this trial. They are a patent troll.