Apple’s A7 smartphone chip has been found to be infringing a patent owned by the University of Wisconsin. This decision came on Tuesday, and the iPhone maker could now be required to pay an amount of $862 million in damages.
Apple was aware of the patent
The lawsuit against Apple was filed early last year, accusing the iPhone firm for using a processor technology in its A7 chip that was developed by university researchers. The company made use of the A7 chips in its newest products at that time, such as the iPhone 5S and the iPad Air.
The hearing on the case began last week, and on Tuesday Apple was found guilty of infringing upon all the six patents, the verdict form shows. News website Law360 informs readers that Apple will face maximum damages payment of $862.4 million. This figure was obtained from a court order filed last month. As of now, it is not known when the decision about the final amount of the damages will be made, but it is possible that the sum could be reduced.
In its complaint, the university stated that Apple filed patent applications that cite “752 patent as prior art.” This suggests that Apple was aware of the patent beforehand. It also said that Apple had a stated policy of not accepting licensing proposals from outside entities like WARF, which makes litigation necessary.
As of now, there have been no comments from either Apple or University of Wisconsin.
Intel also sued
Intel too had been sued over the same patent, forcing the chip maker to finally settle the case with a lump sum of $110 million before it went to trial, as mentioned in a judge’s order filed in the Apple case.
The U.S. patent in question (number 5,781,752) describes a “Table based data speculation circuit for parallel processing computer,” and was awarded to four researchers at the University of Wisconsin in July 1998.
Relief for Apple in e-books case
In a separate case on Tuesday, a U.S. judge agreed that the term of a court-appointed monitor assigned to review Apple’s antitrust compliance program will not be extended. This decision from U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan comes a day after the U.S. Justice Department made the recommendation of not extending the appointment of Michael Bromwich, who was appointed as monitor after Apple was found liable for conspiring to raise e-book prices.
