These judicial twists are really confusing but come on.
In 2008 Apple was sued by Mirror Worlds, which accused Ma of infringing patents (one of them, 6,006,227) which describe methods of displaying documents along a timeline right in line with what we see on Time Machine and even in the display mode Cover Flowin the Finder.
After many accusations and defenses, in 2010 Apple was ordered to pay US $ 625 million; the Cupertino firm appealed and, two years later, the judge of the appeals court said the evidence was “insufficient” to corroborate the jury's decision.
It is just that Mirror Worlds (a subsidiary of Network-1) did not give up and announced yesterday that it has entered into an agreement with Apple. Under the terms defined, Ma pay $ 25 million Mirror Worlds for the fully paid and non-exclusive license of the ‘227 patent, which expired in 2016, in addition to certain rights to other patents in the Network-1 portfolio.
Mirror Worlds was founded in 1996 by David Gelernter (professor of computer science at Yale University) and Dr. Eric Freeman, both inventors of the ‘227 patent. In 2013 the company and its inventions were acquired by Network-1, which describes itself as a company involved in the development, licensing and protection of its intellectual property and proprietary technologies (the good old patent troll).
(via MacRumors)
