BU v/s Apple
Massachusetts federal court this week received an unprecedented patent suit filing over patent infringement.
Boston University (BU) is seeking a ban on all iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air sales based on a patent dating back 22 years that runs out in another two.
In the complaint, Boston University says it wants Apple to make a full “accounting of all gains, profits and advantages derived by Defendant’s infringement,” and that it wants the court to ban Apple from “making, having made, selling, offering for sale, distributing and/or using products that infringe the ’738 patent.”
The patent in question is a method for “highly insulating monocrystalline gallium nitride thin films,” and Boston University says that iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Air products include an infringing thin film semiconductor device. It’s not clear if that’s Apple’s A6 processor, or some other chip — almost certainly built by Samsung or another partner — but in the antique language of patents, this inclusion causes Boston University “substantial and irreparable damage.”
The patent was filed in 1995, but its priority date extends back to March 18, 1991. I think it’s safe to say that the iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Air were not even glimmers in a still youngish Steve Jobs’ eye at that point. The patent was granted in 1997.
The most important date, however, would appear to be 2015. That’s when it will run its 20-year course, expire, and become worthless. [Note- Generally a patent is granted for 20 years and there is no case like renewal.]
Boston University’s patent infringement suit against Apple — one of eight identical claims the school has filed against electronics companies in recent months (BU has also filed seven identical lawsuits against companies including electronics giants Amazon and Samsung) is just the latest example of an aggressive new push by colleges to not only protect their intellectual property, but also bring in more cash.
The “wake-up call” for universities have come in last December when a jury awarded Carnegie Mellon University an astonishing $1.2 billion in a patent lawsuit against Marvell Technology Group and Marvell Semiconductor Inc.
Arti Rai, a Duke University law professor- wrote a paper studying the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which sued 92 firms about a decade ago, just six months before the patent for a color imaging method was set to expire. The suits brought mixed results, with some being dismissed, others settled and still others ruled in the university’s favor.
With inputs from- Venturebeats & Bostonherald