Mirror Worlds

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Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc.
Industrysoftware
Headquarters New Haven, Connecticut
Key people
 David Gelernter
Eric Freeman

Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc., was a company based in New Haven, Connecticut, that created software using ideas from the book Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean (1992) by Yale professor David Gelernter, who helped found the company with Eric Freeman and served as chief scientist.

Gelernter believed that computers could free users from being filing clerks, by organizing their data. The company's main product, Scopeware, was released in March 2001 and attempted to organize a user's files into time-based "streams" and make such data more easily accessible across networks and a variety of devices. [1] The company saw few sales, and announced it would "cease operations effective May 15, 2004." [2]

On March 14, 2008, Mirror Worlds, LLC, of Tyler, Texas (a subsidiary of Plainfield Specialty Holdings I, Inc.), filed suit against Apple, Inc., for patent infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,006,227 in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler, Texas. [3] The infringement [4] was alleged to occur in the Cover Flow, Time Machine, and Spotlight features found in Mac OS X and iOS software used for many of Apple's products. [5]

On October 4, 2010, a jury awarded Mirror Worlds, LLC, $625.5 million in damages, [6] but Apple appealed the award, citing various legal arguments, and the judge stayed the ruling to allow both parties to submit post-trial arguments. The initial ruling was "the second-biggest jury verdict in 2010, and the fourth-biggest patent verdict in U.S. history", according to Bloomberg News. [7]

On April 4, 2011, "U.S. District Judge Leonard E. Davis of Tyler ruled that Apple did not infringe on (the) patent", and overturned the jury verdict. [8]

On June 24, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the appeal by Mirror Worlds, thereby letting stand the district court ruling that Apple didn't infringe on any patents. [9]

On May 9, 2017, Mirror Worlds filed a second patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook, Inc. (later renamed Meta Platforms, Inc.) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,006,227 (the same patent in the previous Texas case against Apple), as well as related U.S. Patent Nos. 7,865,538 and 8,255,439, based primarily on the Facebook "News Feed" and "Timeline" features. On March 8, 2022, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Facebook/Meta, based on non-infringement of the three asserted patents. On December 4, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision affirming the district court's summary judgment ruling. [10]

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References

  1. ↑ "Mirror Worlds Technologies Links Scopeware With Lexmark's Multifunction Solutions to Solve Customer Information Management Challenges". Business Wire. July 3, 2001. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  2. ↑ "Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc. has decided to cease operations". 2 June 2004. To our customers, partners and friends: Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc. has decided to cease operations effective May 15, 2004. Our products, including Scopeware Vision and NewsWatcher, have been discontinued and are no longer available for download, purchase, or continuing support.
  3. ↑ "Mirror Worlds, LLC v. Apple, Inc". Justia.com. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  4. ↑ of U.S. Patent Nos. US 6006227 and US 6638313 B1 ("Document Stream Operating System"), US 6725427 B2 ("Document Stream Operating System with Document Organizing and Display Facilities"), and US 6768999 B2 ("Enterprise, Stream-Based Information Management System") Patently Apple
  5. ↑ Keizer, Gregg (7 October 2010). "Apple wins reprieve from Mirror Worlds patent lawsuit". CIO. Retrieved 9 October 2010.
  6. ↑ Helft, Miguel; Schwartz, John (October 4, 1010). "Apple Challenges Big Award Over Patents". New York Times . Retrieved 2010-10-05. Apple is challenging a jury verdict that could force it to pay as much as $625.5 million to a company founded by David Gelernter, a Yale computer science professor, for infringing three patents related to how files are displayed on the iPod, the iPhone and Macintosh computers.
  7. ↑ Decker and Satariano (October 4, 2010). "Apple Challenges $625.5 Million Mirror Worlds Verdict". Bloomberg. Retrieved 9 October 2010.
  8. ↑ East Texas judge tosses $625M patent verdict against Apple | Southeast Texas Record. Setexasrecord.com (2011-04-05). Retrieved on 2014-03-25.
  9. ↑ Decker, Susan. (2013-06-24) Apple Win in Mirror Worlds Case Left Intact by High Court. Bloomberg. Retrieved on 2014-03-25.
  10. ↑ "CAFC Delivers Win for Meta in Precedential Decision". IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property Law. 2024-12-04. Retrieved 2024-12-10.
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