I highly doubt he got MBTA approval for the use of their trademark. That said, it's not like he's selling posters of it, in which case his product could conceivably be mistaken for licensed MBTA merchandise.
Judging from the exchanges in his blog's comments, he's a guy who knows his copyright, and has been careful about using the MTA's logo only in situations where Fair Use allows it to appear, and not using in situations where it doesn't.
I can see why he's so pissed, by the way. Having taken the time to understand the rules and operate within them, he's going to take an especially dim view of others who should have, and didn't.
By comparison, Supercell which has the #1 top grossing app (Clash of Clans) and #4 top grossing app (Hay Day) was reported to have $15M in gross monthly revenue, which is far less than Vesterbacka's statement about Rovio, but closer in line with Rovio's Finnish filing.
Angry Birds Star Wars is currently #46.
Maybe the merchandise and licensing is where the money is at?
Yes, that is why it is very difficult to get a change of venue out of the Eastern District.
That's just one of the reasons why ED Texas is so deadly.
Others:
In the ED, it is extremely difficult to get a motion to stay pending review of the patent by the USPTO. The court also moves very quickly, which compresses the financial burden of defense into a short time period. The fast moving court also makes it difficult to get a review completed by the USPTO in time before trial.
That said, the AIA compels the USPTO to rule much quicker, increasing the probability that you can get the patent invalidated before it reaches trial. However, the cost of the new review process is incredibly expensive: hundreds of thousands of dollars if you have an average lawyer. Could be a million if you have a top law firm billing you.
It's the result of an incredible bd and ad sales team. If you look at the senior team, esp in sales, it's a lot of very senior CNET veterans who took along most of their experience and contacts from CNET to Meebo.
Shouldn't you narrow down "build a big business charging consumers"?
Even in just digital goods, there are general software companies (Microsoft, Intuit, McAfee), gaming companies (Zynga, EA, Valve), online dating companies (Match, Eharmony), geneology (Ancestry), health (Weight Watchers Online) that make 1+ orders of magnitude more money than Evernote.
Most of them also have freemium models. What's special here?
Actually, at very high volumes (where the non-recurring engineering cost is sufficiently amortized), the larger equivalent component is more expensive, since you are using more material to manufacture the component.
Obviously, other factors, like process yield can be a factor here as well, since a lower process yield for the smaller component would increase its price.
Even with that definition, there was Shozu, which was founded in 2001 and raised over $36M. At least by 2005, they had significant traction with their mobile photo sharing tools.
I think LG came from a merger of Lucky and Goldstar. Goldstar used to make low quality products, I have never used a Lucky product. Then merged and rebranded under LG.
I would totally disagree that the theory is sound. The fact wrist-based actigraphy correlates at all with REM phases is not scientifically validated in any robust way.
