The most ridiculous patent litigation case ever?

Okay, this is a bit of a geeky post I must admit. Sometimes, just sometimes, I find the intellectual property industry very industry, especially when absurd cases like this come up. Before I tell you about, arguably, the most ridiculous patent litigation case ever I'll give you some background on the industry.

I'm sure you all know what a patent is, which you file in order to claim ownership of a particular item (usually for technology or pharmaceutical products). If someone infringes (uses without permission) on one of these items, you can thus sue them for compensation for loss of sales of your item, and for the fact that you are paying to officially patent an item and they are using it without paying you royalties.

Although this system is fantastic at protecting innovative ideas so that inventors can have sole rights to their original ideas, there are flaws to it. One of the biggest flaws falls under patent trolls (or non-practising entities if you want to be professional about it). This started small, with regular people patenting ideas that they had no intention of creating, just so they received some money for it if it ever happened. However, this quickly progressed into large companies being created to do this exact job - filing for patents with no intention of use to then litigate against larger companies. Companies such as Apple, Nokia, Pfizer etc are often at the top of the list for patent trolls, as the amount of money to be made can be billions of dollars.

These patent trolls are very clever, they know exactly how long to wait, what to say, and what to file to ensure success in these litigation cases. The frustration of these cases never ends, with the majority of them ending up successful, even if it is a fraction of the original compensation amounts.


However, every now and then, someone comes along with no idea what they're talking about and just take a shot in the dark! This week, this falls under the name of Thomas Ross - a guy from Florida suing Apple for $10 billion for a patent he actually never even held!

Apple are very often the target of litigation cases, predominately against competitors (i.e Samsung), but fairly often against non-practising entities. However, this week a patent troll has taken trolling to a new level, to the extent that we cannot help but laugh.

Here are the facts: 

- In 1992, a Florida man, Thomas Ross, filed a patent for an 'electronic reading device'. The patent envisioned a device that would combine media-browsing and communications with a touchscreen display. Ross’s sketches include a modem, disk drive, and solar panels.
- In 1995, the patent was classified 'abandoned' after Ross did not pay the fee to file the patent! This means this patent was never officially granted by the U.S Patent and Trademark Office.
- In 2014, the man filed a copyright for his drawings of the 'electronic reading device', despite the patent for this product being invalid.

In the eyes of a patent professional, this case seems ludicrous. However, Thomas Ross believes he is entitled $10 billion in damages for Apple copying his designs. Ross also strongly believes he was the first person “to have created a novel combination of media and communication tools.” On top of this $10 billion, Ross expects 0.5% of the profit from all future profits of the iPhone (around $3 billion a year). For the record, in our opinion, the original drawings look nothing like an iPhone, even if the patent/copyright design was successful!

Proof that patent trolls, professional or not, will literally try anything. Good luck to you Thomas Ross, but something tells us you aren't going to come away from this a multi-billionaire, and perhaps this could end up costing you more than it's worth!

Have a look for yourself, let me know what you think: 

Photo Credit: The Telegraph