Apple loses processor patent dispute with UW

[iacas]

In the end this will basically cost Apple nothing.

You don't know that. Sometimes the winner is not always who is "right."

If it is common for companies to steal tech then the question is does the government have any intention in stopping this?  What if the penalty was actually 3 billion $$ instead of the nearly 1b $$?  Would that get the next company thinking twice about incorporating patented technology?  I don't really don't care how old a patent is, the law is the law..  Just pay for it and then you don't have to worry about it.

You're assuming the patent is valid. Apple argues that it's not. I would - and not that I've looked into it much - argue the same. Branch prediction has prior art. This smells like patent trolling (it's how they fund their research, not trolling per se, but patents).

The USPTO has been under fire for a decade or more because they don't seem to understand technology, and have issued patents to all sorts of pretty ludicrous stuff.

I know in my industry we wait 15 - 30 years for patents to run out on originator drugs so that we can submit our files and get registered to produce and sell the medicine..  Why should the tech companies be any different?  To a point where everyone just shrugs their shoulder and says ah everyone does it..  That's a lame excuse to steal intellectual property IMO.

You're still assuming that it was "stolen intellectual property."