Smartflash trial#
Smartflash's patent trial against Samsung will be scheduled now that the Apple verdict has been handed down. Smartflash has also sued Amazon and Google in the same court district (Google is trying to move the trial to California). Although at the time of the trial, SmartFlash had no employees, products. The trial was held in the Eastern District of Texas, which has been friendly to patent holders in the past. That didn’t stop SmartFlash, however, from aggressively attempting to squeeze money out of the idea. "We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system." The SmartFlash II is a universal signal light control module designed for motorcycle, automotive, truck and electric cart applica-tions. "Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no US presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented," Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman, said in a statement to Bloomberg Business. SmartFlash IItm Price: 99.95 Self-canceling signal light controller with fuse protection - Made in U.S.A. "Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs." 元 cache is an eviction cache that is populated by L2 cache blocks as they are aged out from memory. Apple said it would appeal Tuesday's decision. An optional third tier of read cache, called SmartFlash or Level 3 cache (元), is also configurable on nodes that contain solid state drives (SSDs). Smartflash also argued that Apple intentionally used the patents without permission because the company's founder, Patrick Racz, presented the technology more than ten years ago to Augustin Farrugia, who later became Apple's director of security. The Cupertino-based company said the patents were only worth $4.5 million. Smartflash sought damages of $852 million, which Apple's lawyers described as excessive.
The patents in question pertain to digital rights management (DRM), data storage, and payment systems. The jury in Tyler, Texas, where Smartflash is based, determined that Apple used Smartflash's patents without permission in its iTunes software, rejecting Apple's claims that the patents were invalid. It instead ended the case by ruling Gilstrap should have found Smartflash’s patents invalid himself.A federal jury in Texas this week ordered Apple to pay $532.9 million for infringing three patents owned by Smartflash, a Texas-based patent licensing company. Smartflash appealed that ruling to the Federal Circuit, which could have ended the case by affirming the patent office’s determination. Patent and Trademark Office, which invalidated as too abstract the three Smartflash patents the jury found Apple infringed. The tech giant also joined Samsung in challenging the validity of Smartflash’s patents before the U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap refused to set aside the jury’s findings that Apple infringed Smartflash’s patents, but he ordered a retrial on damages, saying he did not properly instruct the jury on the question of how much to award.Īpple appealed to the Federal Circuit, which is designated to hear patent cases. It later filed additional cases against Google and Amazon. SmartFlash ONE is a one-component, UV-stable, fluid-applied resin for steep and low-sloped roof flashing details and repairs. Smartflash also brought a similar case in the same court against Samsung Electronics Co, which remains pending. Smartflash filed its lawsuit against Apple in the Eastern District of Texas, a venue popular with patent owners.