You're absolutely right, however let's note that no rational person would conclude that Apple actually infringed on any invention of this patent troll. This case should have gone nowhere, and the plaintiffs should have been sent home with a bill for the defense's legal counsel.

I mentioned in another comment about the Eastern District of Texas which became effectively a giant grift operation (though a recent SC case should put a damper on it). Plaintiffs sought it because they knew the jury pool would also be people who benefit from this extraordinarily corrupt, banana republic extortion racket. It was effectively like a forgettable little drive-through town that setup speed traps and decided to fund the municipality on the backs of outsiders.

There are some people who would counter this. For instance one paper notes that of jury trials, 73% of East Texas cases choose for the plaintiff, versus 68% elsewhere, "proving" that it isn't that much of a difference. The problem with this reasoning, however, is that East Texas was specifically where the cases with no merit went. It was overloaded with patent trolls and NPEs.

Actual, credible cases were seldom tried in East Texas.

Every judgment of that district should be vacated.

Yes, just reading a couple of paragraphs of this story reveals the obvious corruption, incompetence, or both, of the court room this took place in.

No idea when banana republic became a "xenophobic slur." It's a pretty well understood term describing a country (or sub-jurisdiction in this example) that is so dependent on a foreign-controlled company or industry that it can be bossed around by that industry.

Pretty ridiculous how the most benign of terms all become slurs in the woke era.

Just don't let it become acceptable. People will try and push and make it sound like it should be obvious that banana republic(and many others) is xenophobic, but just don't accept it, fight it, point out that it's a stupid connection to make and trying to shame others for it is not what modern society should be doing.

The banana republics were originally actual countries south of USA (like Colombia) that were actually manipulated by banana producing multinationals.

That's not what xenophobic means.

You might want to look up the etymology of "grandfather clause", friend.

TIL, thanks. It's regrettable we're still fighting that war.