Headlines without verbs are like pigs without truffles - Mike Magee
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Apple is set to lose its chief patent lawyer
SMARTPHONE AND TABLET MAKER Apple will lose its chief patent lawyer amidst a flurry of legal battles, potentially hindering its ongoing and future lawsuits.
The man in question is Richard "Chip" Lutton Jr and he is currently in charge of Apple's extensive patent portfolio, but that is all set to change.
According to a source close to Reuters, Lutton is expected to leave the company within the next month.
However, it seems that his position is already filled by one BJ Watrous, who previously worked as deputy general legal counsel at HP. Before working at Apple, Lutton was a lawyer for Sun Microsystems.
It is not definitively known why Lutton is parting ways with the cappuccino company. Neither he or Apple have commented on the reports.
The news comes at a bad time for Apple, which is engaged in several lawsuits, primarily with smartphone makers like HTC and Samsung. It's not yet clear if the replacement by Watrous will be a good or bad thing for Apple's legal battles, but he likely will not know the cases as well as Lutton.
We cannot help but wonder if this change of post has anything to do with a recent patent lawsuit that Apple lost. It was found to be infringing two patents belonging to Personal Audio and told to pay $8m in damages. Perhaps this loss prompted Apple to reconsider who was in charge of patent disputes.
Another setback for Apple was when it was forced to pay a licence fee to Nokia last month after losing its legal battle against the Finnish phone maker over various patents. These recent losses might have forced Apple to consider making a change for its lead patent position. µ
Tags: Apple
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Apple is called "nadkusannye" in Russian which is something like "bitten" LOL
But anyway, wish them success in their patent battle against some asian (and all other) copycats. Think this way: Apple employs some of them, or shows how things have to be done, while they have unemployment rate 3.3% against our official 9%, and unofficial 15+ (and 20+ in Apple's California). Apple actually makes these people to compete with it and America leaving 15% eat the sh!t under the bridges.
I am not Apple fan or owner and do not plan to be. And I owed and owe a lot of Samsung and HTC stuff. Fair enough.
@A C Howard: I was hoping for:
FRUIT THEMED PRODUCT MANUFACTURERS...blah blah blah....
For once, and I mean for once, the article isn't massively biased.
I see we have a noob here. Welcome, Tony T!
Personally I was hoping to read the "shiny toymaker" moniker usually slapped in front of the capitalised word 'apple'. I can only blame a lapse in Dean's writing abilities.
"cappuccino company"? In Cupertino perhaps?