Jury Finds Marvell Must Pay $1.17 Billion in Patent Case

I find it interesting that here, when a university is doing the patent-suing, HN errs on the defensive side:<p>"Accusing Carnegie Mellon of patent trolling is probably not the most effective way to advocate for patent reform."<p>"Universities have been among the biggest producers of patents for 50+ years now."<p>"The internet needs more details so we can make an uninformed opinion and collectively decide to be impotently pissed off at the university or not."<p>However, when a large commercial entity is suing (e.x. Apple v. Samsung [1]), HN bashes the patent system:<p>"these cases set a chilling precedent for the platform that looks likely to dominate the computing industry for at least the next decade."<p>"It will hurt innovation because every damn thing is going to have to go through a committee of lawyers before being approved, and it will hurt innovation because the idea that innovation always involves making something brand-new and from whole cloth is fucking retarded."<p>"Apple's successful use of the broken patent system sends exactly the wrong signal."<p>Are these entities (Apple and CMU) really all that different? Both spend a lot on R&#38;D, and both want to protect their property. In a sense, there are better reasons to support Apple filing patent lawsuits (forgetting about the specifics of either suit) than CMU. CMU receives a large fraction of funding from taxpayer-funded sources, and produces no real products, just IP. By contrast, Apple receives very little taxpayer money, and uses the patent system to defend its real products.<p>[1] <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4430101" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4430101</a>

An article with more details - <a href="http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_22263081/marvell-slammed-1-2-billion-patent-infringement-judgment" rel="nofollow">http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_22263081/marvell-sl...</a>

The internet needs more details so we can make an uninformed opinion and collectively decide to be impotently pissed off at the university or not.

News stories are blindly passing information free snippets around based on the article from Reuters.<p>There's a bunch of specific information about the case here, for the curious: <a href="http://dockets.justia.com/docket/pennsylvania/pawdce/2:2009cv00290/90950/" rel="nofollow">http://dockets.justia.com/docket/pennsylvania/pawdce/2:2009c...</a><p>-_- the uspo has terrible links, but here are the links to the patents themselves too, they're pretty specific.<p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&#38;Sect2=HITOFF&#38;p=1&#38;u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&#38;r=1&#38;f=G&#38;l=50&#38;d=PALL&#38;RefSrch=yes&#38;Query=PN/6201839" rel="nofollow">http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&#38;Sec...</a><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&#38;Sect2=HITOFF&#38;d=PALL&#38;p=1&#38;u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&#38;r=1&#38;f=G&#38;l=50&#38;s1=6,438,180.PN.&#38;OS=PN/6,438,180&#38;RS=PN/6,438,180" rel="nofollow">http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&#38;Sec...</a>

I don't know anything about the merits of this case, but there is something disquieting about a taxpayer financed non-profit entity, supposedly pursuing truth in a disinterested way, doing this. If CMU wants the freedom to pursue its self-interest, it should not be accorded any special taxpayer funding and be stripped of its non-profit status. You cannot have it both ways.<p>Next time a venture capitalist tries to talk me into taking venture capital because "our funds come from University endowments" - it is sacred money because you know it is sprinkled with the holy water of "education" - I know what I would say.<p>CMU should be at liberty to pursue its self-interest. Let's just not allow it to claim a sacred disinterested pursuit of knowledge.<p>Let me disclose my bias here. I have come to believe that the University system as it exists today is not true to its original mission. This case serves to reinforce my bias.

CMU CS alum and Pittsburgh resident here. While $1.17 billion would more than double the university's endowment, it's hard to be excited about this. I don't understand how this settlement is remotely proportional to the damage Marvell could have done to CMU.<p>This case was also decided by a Pittsburgh jury, which doesn't seem right.

"[Marvell] argued in the case that it didn't infringe the patents, which Marvell alleged were obtained improperly by withholding information about prior inventions from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office." <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424127887323984704578203751185147598.html" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aonlin...</a><p>The way I read this, Marvell is claiming that CMU filed for the patent without having done a proper search for prior art? Can anyone dig up the relevant court docs? My legal-fu is not that strong.

Note to the value investors out there: Marvell is an undervalued company (even after taking into account this $1.2 billion penalty.) Their stock price declined by 10% today, making it even more attractive.

Iron Man is real?!

More and more, I think patent trolling is a great business for startups. No need for expensive sales, marketing teams at all. You only need devs and patent attorney.