Apple has been ordered by a jury to pay damages to Mirror Worlds for infringing patents related to how documents are displayed on a computer screen, reports “Bloomberg” (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-01/apple-loses-mirror-worlds-trial-over-document-display-patents.html). The federal jury in Tyler, Texas, awarded $208.5 million in damages for each of the patents infringed.
“Bloomberg” says the verdict form was unclear as to whether the amount applies to the three patents collectively or would be charged individually. Lawyers for closely held Mirror Worlds declined to discuss the verdict.
In 2008 Mirror Worlds Technologies, a Texas based company, accused Apple of violating four distinct but related patents that touch on creating “streams” of documents that are automatically sorted according to time stamps, including future dates assigned to calendars and other reminders. The company said that just about all of Apple’s product line infringes on a system for organizing data by time, “but draws its closest connection with the Time Machine backup feature in Mac OS X Leopard.”