Jury Finds Apple Not Guilty in Patent Troll Case Against Emblaze
posted Sunday Jul 13, 2014 by Nicholas DiMeo
Back in 2010, Emblaze, an Israeli company, sued Apple for patent infringement on several popular iPhone applications, including the Major League Baseball app. A jury ruled this week after a two-week trial that Apple did not actually infringe upon those patents and will not have to pay the $511 million that Emblaze demanded.
The patent in question is US Patent Number 6,389,473 B1, called "Network Media Streaming" and Emblaze claimed that it was being infringed in Apple's use of HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). Basically, any time that a customer would've watched live content on an iPhone and iPad since 2009, Emblaze said Apple was in violation.
Emblaze claimed the above-mentioned MLB app and also apps from ABC News, PGA, NFL and ESPN were infringing on the patent. The Apple Keynotes and iTunes festival were also accused but the jury said that none of these actually infringed on the patent. In the end, Emblaze wanted $511 million in damages from 2009 up until June of 2013 but all of that was dismissed by the court. It should be noted that Emblaze tried to sue Microsoft in 2012 for infringing on the same patent.
How did all of this come about? Well, according to Apple, Emblaze actually developed several audio products that they intended to license and sell to wireless companies. However each and every product was pretty much a total failure and Apple's lawyers said that Emblaze was "trying to make up for that lack of success in the courtroom." And, citing the Microsoft lawsuit, the attorney team also said Emblaze is merely a "company that just sues companies." This, according to Gary Shapiro and many others, is the classic "patent troll" case. And, to put things into perspective, Emblaze was demanding over $500 million when its annual revenue for 2013 was only $1.9 million. If that isn't just a courtroom company, I don't know what is.
It only took the jury a little more than a day to reach a unanimous verdict. With this victory, Apple is currently 2-0 in patent troll cases this year, and has a third suit coming up in a few months.
