US- Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) The Cupertino giant has lost the patent case against the University of Wisconsin, which is now authorized by the law to claim its US$234 million fine from the iPhone company.
Apple brags about its own innovations and unique patents created and used only by the company. For that reason, partly, Apple and Samsung have been meeting each other in the court for a long time now. But as the law has decided, the American tech giant has unlawfully infringed on a processor patent that rightfully belongs to the University of Wisconsin, so now the company has to pay a US$234 million fine.
A report from Bloomberg Business noted the university’s complaint in detail. According to that report – and as mentioned previously on a TNE article – the University had a 1998 microprocessor patent that Apple has used upon its A7, A8 and A8X chips that are widely used in the company’s iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and a series of iPads. “This is a case where the hard work of our university researchers and the integrity of patenting and licensing discoveries has prevailed,” Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of the foundation, mentioned in a statement.
MUST READ: Apple loses processor patent lawsuit to University of Wisconsin and faces $862M in damages
Apple was supposed to pay royalties to the University for using their patent – a standard procedure that needs to be followed – but they didn’t; hence the trouble that they got into later on.
The amount of the $234 million has been settled taking under consideration a per phone royalties estimation. The University of Wisconsin was asking for $2.74 per phone unit, while Apple argued that the technology only accounted for $0.07 per phone. In the end, the U.S. District Judge who resided over the case said that Apple had not “willfully infringed WARF’s patent.”. This essentially means that if the judge had agreed with the University of Wisconsin, Apple could have be facing a much higher fee, even nearly to a non-affordable one for the colossal tech company.
WARF has another pending lawsuit against Apple, in which they’re claiming infringement in the design of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus and the iPad Pro, but it should take some time until that dispute finds its way to the court.
Source: Immortal.org, Bloomberg
Photo credit: DigitalTrends
