patents
New lawsuit in billion-dollar patent dispute with Apple
Apple and the supplier Broadcom do not have to pay a billion-dollar fine to Caltech for patent infringements. Photo: Stefan Jaitner/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A billion-dollar fine for patent infringements has been averted for the time being. Now it’s recalculating what Apple and Broadcom have to pay Caltech.
Apple and its chip supplier Broadcom get the chance to push a patent fine in the billions in a new lawsuit.
A US appeals court ruled on Friday that the $1.1 billion figure was miscalculated. The judges also only confirmed the infringement of two patents from the Californian university Caltech. A new trial was also ordered for a third patent.
Two years ago, a jury awarded Caltech around $838 million from Apple and a good $270 million from Broadcom. However, the court of appeal was bothered by the fact that the amounts were calculated on the basis of different tariffs for the iPhone group and its suppliers. There was no legal basis for this. Caltech had argued that Broadcom also had to pay patent fees for chips that didn’t go to Apple.
Highest patent penalty in the US to date
Caltech (California Institute of Technology) had already accused Apple and Broadcom in a lawsuit in 2016 of infringing patents on WLAN technologies in a wide range of devices from the iPhone to the Apple Watch computer watch.
The $1.1 billion was among the highest awarded in US patent lawsuits. The sum could have been even higher: the jury found that Apple and Broadcom did not intentionally infringe the three patents. Otherwise, the compensation payments would be three times higher in the USA. The patent penalties imposed in the first instance are often overturned or at least reduced after appeals.
The case against Apple and Broadcom is being watched closely in the tech industry, as Caltech has also sued the smartphone market leader Samsung with its WLAN patents.