Apple Inc. (AAPL) Fined In Japan For Patent Infringement

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Tokyo District Court has ordered Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to pay ¥330 million in a patent settlement to Norihiko Saito, a Japanese Inventor. Apple has been found guilty of infringing the patent rights by using a click wheel system on its iPod previous versions and current iPod classic, according to Dow Jones Business News.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) Fined In Japan For Patent Infringement

Apple used Saito’s technology in iPods

The technology was patented by Saito’s company in 1998, and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has used the technology for its iPod in Japan since 2004, according to Presiding Judge Teruhisa Takano’s ruling.

In 2007, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was hit by an injunction case filed by Saito, but companies could not reach on any settlement then. Further, Saito increased his compensation for damages demand to ¥10 billion ($101 million).

In Saito’s case, there is not an incident of patent troll as it was filed five years back, and the ruling was just delayed. Often big companies delay a case so that the company filing the lawsuit may eventually reduce its compensation price. This is a common strategy and evident in this case as the initial demand of ¥10 billion ($101 million) by Saito was lowered to $3.3 million.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will surely be irate at the idea of paying $3.3 million for iPod, which will soon join the league of obsolete gadgets like Walkman and Laser Disc Player.

Another patent invalidated due to being a ‘Prior art’

In a separate patent case, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) received another knock out when FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller, the Bundespatentgericht, or Federal Patent Court of Germany declared that the patent of Apple namely EP2059868  for a “Portable electronic device for photo management,” covering specific utilization of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s “bounce-back” is invalid due to Prior art.

The late Steve Jobs demonstrated the technology mentioned in the patent when the first generation iPhone was launched in 2007 keynote.

At the time of the presentation, the inventors were granted 12 months’ duration by the United States patent laws to apply for the patent after innovating something new. During 12 months period, anything shown publicly or published will not be considered as prior art. Such provisions are not accepted in Europe, which means that the January 2007 video can be taken as a pre-filing disclosure of a prior art, which was made public before Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s late June patent priority date.

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