Patent troll on the verge of winning 1 percent of iPhone revenue

In 2012, Apple won the year’s biggest patent verdict—more than $1 billion against Samsung.

The company also lost one of that year’s biggest cases when an East Texas jury ordered it to pay $368 million to a company named VirnetX for infringing patents related to FaceTime and VPN On Demand functions used in iPhones, iPads, and Macs. VirnetX is a company some call a “patent troll” because its only business is now patent enforcement. Then, in March, US District Judge Leonard Davis ordered an ongoing royalty to be paid to VirnetX. The number was downright stunning: 0.98 percent of revenue from iPhones and iPads sold in the US.

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Maybe some in US rejoiced when Samsung lost against Apple in a patent skirmish: foreign company had lost, local company had won. Sadly for them what goes around comes around - now it’s their boy who is getting spanked. I beieve a categorical ban against software patents is in order. We all know if Xerox Parc filed and enforced patents for the ideas it generated back in the day, there would be no Apple, and there would be no Microsoft. Yet, we now see Apple patents such as “‘163: Enlarging documents by tapping the screen”. Is this what law profession is about now? Who makes money, an entire business dealing with this shit? Someone actually reads these words, files some papers, follows-up, shifts around resources, for what? What benefits do we, the rest of the society get from this kind of structure?