Apple has been hit with a judgment for ¥330 million ($3.3 million) in a Japanese court case over infringement of a patent by the company's click wheel system used on a number of past iPod models and the current iPod classic, reports Dow Jones Business News.
The Tokyo District Court on Thursday ordered Apple Inc. ( AAPL ) to pay Y330 million in damages to Japanese inventor Norihiko Saito in a patent infringement case involving the U.S. firm's iPod music player, Kyodo News reported.
The patent that Mr. Saito's company applied for in 1998 covers a technology for the Click Wheel controller that Apple has adopted for the music player in Japan since 2004, Presiding Judge Teruhisa Takano said in the ruling.
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Saito had filed an injunction request against Apple back in 2007, and as settlement negotiations failed to result in any agreement, he eventually increased his damages request to ¥10 billion ($101 million). The court ruled, however, that Apple's infringement warranted the much smaller judgment.
Top Rated Comments
The hypocrisy is laughable.
No hypocrisy of mine. Where is mine?
And where is evidence that Apple usually pays. Before? Most of the stories are about Apple (and others) having to go through litigation for refusing to pay patent fees.
And who are you (or I) to judge how much or how little a patent is worth. Isn't that why there are courts? If a patent is integral - then isn't it worth more than something that's a "throw away?"
It's clear the judge believed the amount was exorbitant here. Which is great for Apple.
You clearly missed the overarching comment of mine. It's cool.
you traitor :D
Read it again. It doesn't say the Japanese company patented the click wheel; it says the compnay patented a technology used in the click wheel. The click wheel might use a hundred different technologies... you can't tell from the article how prominent this specific one was.
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I'm with you on the "evil" part. But unless you've been involved with development of a complex product, you might not realize that it is almost impossible to develop a complex product without inadvertently violating some existing patent.