Jury tells Apple to pay $506m over 4G tech infringement

A Texas jury has told  Apple to pay  Optis Wireless Technology more than $506 million in patent royalties for wilfully infringing patents covering 4G technology.

The jury—at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas—found that Apple had failed to prove any of the challenged patent claims were invalid, and then concluded that Apple wilfully infringed five patents.

Optis, Unwired Planet, and PanOptis Patent Management had  sued Apple back in February last year, accusing the technology company of infringing a portfolio of patents related to long term evolution (LTE) standards through the sale of Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Watch product lines.

LTE, which is commonly marketed as ‘4G LTE & Advanced 4G’, is a standard for high-speed wireless communication for devices.

At the time of filing the complaint, Optis claimed that it had been unable to reach a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory agreement with Apple for a global licence to the plaintiffs’ patent portfolios.

Many of Optis’s patents were originally owned by Panasonic, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Ericsson.

District Judge Rodney Gilstrap oversaw the seven-day trial, after denying Apple’s bid to postpone jury selection to October amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Nothing in Apple’s request assures the court of anything more than a lengthy, protracted delay, which will simply guarantee material prejudice to all parties,” said Gilstrap in denying the motion in late July.

He added: “The task of balancing very real public health concerns against the right of the parties to resolve their far-reaching disputes is a challenge this court has not sought and does not relish. However, as Robert Frost admonished in ‘A Servant to Servants’, ‘the best way out is always through’.”

Yesterday, WIPR reported that Apple had managed to  secure a delay in its patent retrial with VirnetX due to the prevalence of COVID-19 in Texas.

District Judge Robert Schroeder of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted a delay until October 26, when the trial was originally set to conclude, citing “good cause for a continuance”.

A jury retrial is being held at the court after the  US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit cancelled a $503 million damages award for VirnetX last November.

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