Cover Flow
Gelernter
David Gelernter changed the way computers work. Now, having conquered the Apple Goliath in a landmark court case, will he help change the way often cut-throat tech innovators share ideas and credit each other?
A federal jury Friday decided that features on Apple’s iPhone, iPod, and iPad are too similar to innovations developed by Gelernter — and awarded his company, Mirror Worlds, a whopping $625.5 million.
If the verdict holds — Apple has challenged it — it will be one of the largest patent law judgments in the nation’s history.
The decision came on Friday in a federal courtroom in Tyler, Texas, where Gelernter (pictured), who’s a Yale computer science professor, has been fighting Apple computers on three charges of patent infringement. He sued Apple over the patents in 2008. The case focused on three features of Apple software: Cover Flow, a way for users to flip through files like they were LPs; Spotlight, a hard drive search tool; and Time Machine, which automatically backs up data.
Gelernter argued that those features infringed on the patents of products developed by Mirror Worlds. The jury agreed, and said he’s entitled to $208.5 for each infringement.
(Three former Harvard classmates of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, by contrast, got “only” $65 million among them for allegedly having their idea stolen.)
Gelertner is known as a visionary in his field. He’s also known as a novelist and non-fiction author; painter (click here to read about how police recovered a piece stolen from a father-son show at the Slifka center); conservative political essayist; and the survivor of a 1993 attack in the form of an explosive package sent to him by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
Gelernter said Tuesday that he’s not yet able to discuss the details of the Apple case.
Before the verdict was announced Gelernter spoke to the blog BigThink about the case: “[It’s] not because of the money, but because of the deliberate failure to acknowledge work that we would have made freely available as academics. .… We’d like to see credit where credit is due.”
Apple has challenged the decision, saying in part that Gelernter should not have three cumulative awards. The company filed an emergency motion in advance of Judge Leonard Davis formally entering a verdict.
Local attorney Norm Pattis called the jury’s decision “an eye-popping verdict.”
Pattis said patent cases involving computer technology can be complicated by the fast pace of innovation. The key is originality, he said. Two people could come to an idea at the same time, by coincidence. Or someone could willfully take advantage of an innovation that someone has clearly already developed. In the case at hand, the jury decided that the latter occurred.
“If that’s the case, shame on [Apple],” Pattis said.
Pattis said the case is unlikely to effect a big change to the computer industry: “It should, but I doubt it will.” With everyone running out to buy each new Apple product, the company has enough money to absorb even a huge judgment like this, Pattis said.
Drew McDermott, a professor of computer science at Yale, put colleague Gelernter’s work in the context of his field. “He’s known as a visionary in many ways.”
Gelernter conceived of a new way of interacting with the data on one’s computer, McDermott said. The tools that Apple developed were part of that, but Gelernter had a “more integrated vision of how these ideas would fit together than Apple did.”
“Apple has taken the ideas and used them in other ways,” McDermott said.
The ideas were part of what Gelernter called lifestreams, a way of searching and organizing files in many different ways, according to the needs of the user. Life Streams would render traditional file systems obsolete.
“I hope he can spare a million,” McDermott joked about Gelernter’s huge judgment.
Look Out, Jobs: Berkowitz Is Next
Allan Apple File Photo
Ben Berkowitz, another local tech innovator, reflected on the judgment — and on his own David-and-Goliath challenge to Apple.
Apple often gets a bad rap from web developers, said Berkowitz, who started the New Haven-based community problem-reporting web site SeeClickFix. “There’s a perception that Apple is evil.” The company is seen as too controlling and difficult to work with. “The chief complaint is that it’s a closed empire.”
But Berkowitz (at right in file photo, with 360 State developer Bruce Becker) said he doesn’t feel that way. “I don’t feel like they’re evil for sure.”
Sure, it can be difficult to get a mobile app approved for the iPad or iPhone, but it’s not as hard as people make it out to be, he said.
Berkowitz said his only beef with Apple is a fun one. He’s currently in second place in the Huffington Post’s competition to determine the “Ultimate Game Changer In Technology.”
In first place by one tenth of a point? Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Cast your vote for the Ultimate Game Changer here.