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11 January 2016Patents

Federal Circuit hands Apple victory in Wi-LAN patent battle

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed an earlier ruling that Apple did not infringe one of licensing company Wi-LAN’s patents covering wireless communication.

Wi-LAN had been seeking $248 million in damages over the alleged infringement of patent number RE37,802.

The patent covers a method of wireless communication called “MultiCode Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum”. Wi-LAN had claimed that Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices had infringed the disputed patent in a lawsuit filed in 2011 at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

A jury found that Apple had not infringed the patent and that it was also invalid. But following Wi-LAN’s motion for a judgment as a matter of law (JMOL), Judge Rodney Gilstrap vacated part of the decision and ruled that the patent was valid.

However, Gilstrap rejected Wi-LAN’s JMOL concerning the infringement verdict.

Both Wi-LAN and Apple sought a reversal of the decisions. Wi-LAN was seeking a ruling of infringement and Apple challenged the validity of the patent.

At the federal circuit, Judge Jimmie Reyna sided with Apple on both the question of infringement and invalidity in a ruling issued on Friday, January 8.

“Because the jury’s verdict of non-infringement was supported by substantial evidence, we affirm the district court’s denial of JMOL as to non-infringement.”

Reyna added that because the judgment covering validity was based on a post-verdict construction of the asserted claims, the Texas court’s decision should be reversed.

“At the JMOL stage, the question for the trial court is limited to whether substantial evidence supports the jury’s verdict under the issued construction,” he concluded.

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