In a Thursday night decision, U.S. District Judge Rodney
Gilstrap said Personalized Media Communications LLC (PMC) intentionally delayed
filing its application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, hoping to
obtain a larger payout.
"This court takes very seriously the prospect of
disturbing the unanimous verdict of a duly empaneled jury," but PMC's
"deliberate strategy of delay" was a "conscious and egregious
misuse of the statutory patent system," Gilstrap wrote.
PMC, based in Sugar Land, Texas, claimed in its 2015 lawsuit
that the FairPlay software used in Apple's iTunes service and App Store to
decrypt movies, music and apps infringed its patent obtained in 2012.
But the judge, who sits in Marshall, Texas, accepted Apple's
defense of "prosecution laches," which can block a patent holder from
enforcing a patent after an unreasonable and unexplained delay. Gilstrap said
PMC's delay lasted many years.
Jurors had found Cupertino, California-based Apple liable to
PMC on March 19, after a one-week trial.
"PMC respectfully disagrees with Judge Gilstrap's
ruling and plans to appeal," its lawyer Douglas Kline of Goodwin Procter
said in an email.
Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
PMC's patent application dated to applications filed in the
1980s.
Gilstrap said PMC employed a so-called "submarine"
patent strategy, filing serial applications and then keeping its patent
portfolio "hidden" until industry widely adopted the underlying
technology.
He said PMC would demand licensing fees or allege
infringement only after it believed infringement was widespread.
He cited an internal PMC document from 1991 identifying
Apple, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Microsoft as "natural
candidates" for its strategy.
A June 1 decision by the federal appeals court handling
patent cases made it easier to challenge submarine patents. - Reuters
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