Earlier this week, the judge suggested that damages could come out to as much as US$862.4 million (about £557 million) – a drop in the bucket compared to Apple’s bulging market value, but still a massive amount of money.
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There’s also the principle of the thing.
A federal court jury in Madison on Tuesday supported a criminal complaint initially filed in 2014 by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, finding Apple Inc guilty of infringing on the foundation’s patent rights for a specialised microprocessor. As the Post notes, WARF is among the top university-based intellectual property holders in the country, with this year’s donation to UW-over $70 million dollars-representing 2.5 percent of the university’s total annual budget.
As the University of Wisconsin’s non-profit patent management body, WARF patents and licenses inventions developed at the institution, with proceeds gained put toward future research projects. The third phase of the trial will consider whether the infringement was willful, which could lead to triple damages. In 2012 Samsung was ordered to pay more than $1 billion to Apple, but after various appeals, the two companies are set to return to court in 2016 to rethink the damages.
“This is an action for infringement of a patent awarded to computer scientists for their work at the University of Wisconsin – Madison”, said attorney of the plaintiff’s party in a legal filing.
“WARF did prevail on liability but evidence regarding damages has yet to be presented”, said a WARF spokeswoman.
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The jury found out that Apple illegally used the patent’s technology in its processors to enhance the performance of a few of its iPhones and iPads. WARF claims that Apple is using its patent in Apple’s latest A9 SoC (system-on-a-chip), said Computerworld. This lawsuit, however, was settled before the case went to trial. If you’re an Apple user, however, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve been using relying on a piece of WARF technology for a while now.
