Mirror Worlds
Encyclopedia
Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc. was a company based in New Haven, Connecticut, which 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 can 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.
The company saw few sales, and announced it would "cease operations effective May 15, 2004".
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 in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
in Tyler, Texas. The infringement is 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.
On October 4, 2010 a jury awarded Mirror Worlds, LLC $625.5 Million in damages but Apple has appealed the award citing various legal arguments and the judge stayed the ruling until the end of November to allow both parties to submit post-trial arguments. If allowed to stand, it would be "the second-biggest jury verdict in 2010, and the fourth-biggest patent verdict in U.S. history" according to Bloomberg, who quoted Gelernter as saying he was “tremendously grateful” to his lawyers for “their overwhelmingly brilliant performance”. The jury was told by an Apple lawyer that the Mirror World patents had been sold twice (for $210,000 and later $5 million).
On April 4th, 2011, "U.S. District Judge Leonard E. Davis of Tyler ruled that Apple did not infringe on (the) patent", and overturned the jury verdict.
David Gelernter
David Hillel Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale University. In the 1980s, he made seminal contributions to the field of parallel computation, specifically the tuple space coordination model, as embodied by the Linda programming system...
, who helped found the company with Eric Freeman
Eric Freeman (writer)
Eric Freeman is a computer scientist, author and constituent of David Gelernter on the Lifestreaming concept.-Authored works:Eric Freeman has publishing accolades for Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML which he co-authored with Elisabeth Freeman, and Head First Design Patterns also co-authored with...
and served as chief scientist. Gelernter believed that computers can 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.
The company saw few sales, and announced it would "cease operations effective May 15, 2004".
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 in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is the Federal district court with jurisdiction over the eastern part of Texas and is a part of the Fifth Circuit. The court's headquarters are in Tyler, Texas and has five subdivision offices in Beaumont, Lufkin, Marshall,...
in Tyler, Texas. The infringement is alleged to occur in the Cover Flow, Time Machine
Time Machine (software)
Time Machine is a backup utility developed by Apple. It is included with Mac OS X and was introduced with the 10.5 "Leopard" release of Mac OS X. The software is designed to work with the Time Capsule as well as other internal or external drives.-Overview:...
, and Spotlight
Spotlight (software)
Spotlight is a system-wide desktop search feature of Apple's Mac OS X operating system. Spotlight is a selection-based search system, which creates a virtual index of all items and files on the system. It is designed to allow the user to quickly locate a wide variety of items on the computer,...
features found in Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
and iOS software used for many of Apple's products.
On October 4, 2010 a jury awarded Mirror Worlds, LLC $625.5 Million in damages but Apple has appealed the award citing various legal arguments and the judge stayed the ruling until the end of November to allow both parties to submit post-trial arguments. If allowed to stand, it would be "the second-biggest jury verdict in 2010, and the fourth-biggest patent verdict in U.S. history" according to Bloomberg, who quoted Gelernter as saying he was “tremendously grateful” to his lawyers for “their overwhelmingly brilliant performance”. The jury was told by an Apple lawyer that the Mirror World patents had been sold twice (for $210,000 and later $5 million).
On April 4th, 2011, "U.S. District Judge Leonard E. Davis of Tyler ruled that Apple did not infringe on (the) patent", and overturned the jury verdict.