Tyler, Texas – Apple (NASD: AAPL) has won an appeals court reversal of a
ruling that would have seen the company ordered to pay $625.5 million in patent
infringement damages over its Cover Flow album art display and other features,
Bloomberg reported.
Mirror Worlds, a firm founded by Yale computer science
Prof. David Gelernter, sued Apple in 2008 over patents related to Apple’s Cover
Flow, Time Machine automatic back-up and Spotlight computer search features.
A
jury sided with Mirror Worlds in October, and ordered Apple to pay a total of
$625.5 million in damages.
The federal judge handling the appeal did not
invalidate Mirror Worlds’ patents, but said Apple did not infringe upon them —
and also found the jury’s damages award to be too high.
"Mirror Worlds may
have painted an appealing picture for the jury, but it failed to lay a solid
foundation sufficient to support important elements it was required to
establish under the law," U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis wrote in his
ruling.
Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/3h7kwns
(Bloomberg)
http://tinyurl.com/25nlpv6
(DMW previous coverage)
