Apple may face $862 million in damages for allegedly infringing on a patent owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s patent-licensing wing, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
The Apple technologies that take advantage of said patent for increased processor efficiency? None other than the A7, A8 and A8X chips, which are found in the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus handsets, as well as several iPad models.
Uh-oh.
A jury ruled Tuesday that Apple used the 1998 patent without permission. The next stage of the trial will establish exactly how much Apple owes in damages. The figure that Apple owes could increase if it is shown that the company willfully, rather than accidentally, infringed on the patent.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison previously sued Intel for a similar offense back in 2008, in a case that was eventually settled out of court. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has, in the past, been described as a patent troll by Business Insider, although others have disputed this.
Apple’s not off the hook just yet, though. Last month, the University of Wisconsin-Madison filed a second lawsuit against the company, claiming that it also infringes on patents owned by WARF. The offending devices this time? The iPhone 6s, 6s Plus and iPad Pro.
This could take a while…
Source: Reuters
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
15 responses to “Apple faces $862 million fine for infringing university’s patent”
Why do you insist on calling them patent trolls? This supposed patent troll is a not for profit organisation that ploughs money back into research. Last year it gave the university $72m
Apple were fully aware of the existence of the patent and even cited WARF’s (5,781,752) patent in their own patent applications.
Apple tried to have the 752 patent ruled invalid but lost.
Time to pay up, and to pay up (to 3 times more) for wilfully infringing the patent, and then to pay up for the newer A9 processor case.
Apropos Intel. They too were found guilty of infringing the patent. The key difference is that Intel’s defence was that as a financial backer of the original research (to the tune of $90,000) they believed that they had a right to use the IP. The courts agreed that the infringement was not wilful, at which point Intel settled out of court.
Sorry Luke, not the finest example of impartial journalism.
That’s a fair point. I’ll amend the story. The patent troll reference was cited in the story, but I can see that this isn’t as cut-and-dried as some entities which acquire patent portfolios and then do nothing more than enforce them. Thanks for the feedback.
Fair play luke- regards
Simple. When Apple accuses companies like Samsung and Windows of “infringing” on “look and feel” and UI/UX features, their fans accuse them of blatant obvious copying that should be punished with billions of damages, being driven from the marketplace and bankruptcy.
But when Apple actually does rip off actual hardware designs as they have been caught doing multiple times from not only this outfit but refusing to pay Qualcomm for 2G and LTE technology, Apple fans claim that the hardware designs are not patentable, would not be profitable anyway had Apple not come along to use the technology properly, and that these companies should just accept what Apple chooses to pay them for ripping off their tech.
Stuff like this exposes how little original research Apple actually does. Instead, Apple uses the original research done by others to come up with bits and pieces created by other companies to assemble together to create products that are aesthetically pleasing and simple to use. Apple fans want the “aesthetically pleasing and simple to use” stuff to be patentable while the actual technology behind them to be “open source” if you will. It is an appalling double standard, especially since the tech would still be perfectly functional and used by hundreds of millions of people without Apple’s UI/UX contributions (as PCs and smartphones were long before the Mac and iPhone came along) but without the hardware that everyone else puts billions of real R&D into, Apple’s products wouldn’t exist at all. Without Intel, Samsung, IBM etc. to create the hardware and also Google, Microsoft etc. to create good software and services (that Apple incidentally copies to provide inferior versions for their own walled garden … Apple by themselves is only able to come up with stuff like iTunes, and even the guts of that was bought from another company) mighty Apple doesn’t even have a viable marketable product. Go back to the iPod: great product but nonexistent without the flash memory and CPU tech that Apple didn’t invent but had to take (without paying) from the companies that did invent it. But you will never see that mentioned on sites like this, or on any other Apple fan site.
Even Android, over which Steve Jobs wanted to sue Google and its partners, as he believed it to be a “stolen product”. Aren’t iOS and Android both Linux-based? Isn’t Linux open source? Then how can Android be a “stolen product”?
Android is Linux based. Mac OS X is UNIX-based. As far as iOS I am not so sure, but it was originally “iPhone OS”, a superset of the original iPod OS at the beginning, that they have made more and more like Mac OS X over time. But the differences between Linux and UNIX are not trivial by the way. They provide similar UX, but uses different tech to accomplish it. I will say that creating a desktop OS from a modified, stripped down version of UNIX is a bit more impressive than using Linux to make a mobile OS, especially if you consider APK to be just another Linux package format (think yum for Red Hat like systems or apt for Debian-like systems).
The “stolen product” line was a reference to how Google abandoned their plans to make Android into a Blackberry clone and instead use it to make devices similar to the iPhone. But in reality, it was about how Apple hates competition and wants a Microsoft Windows-type monopoly in any market that they enter. Jobs didn’t so much care about Android having a touchscreen interface with icons (as Apple didn’t invent that either) just as they didn’t care about Microsoft Windows copying the Apple PC UI/UX (which again Apple didn’t invent). What he cared about was having the same monopoly on mobile devices that Apple enjoyed with the iPod, and he knew that thanks to Google and Android, they would never achieve it.
A Big 10 university boasting such alumni as Frank Lloyd Wright and Dale Chihuly is a “patent troll”? Really? Have you been there? The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a highly respected establishment. Please please please put your pro-Apple bias aside for a moment and learn about this *public university* and its history. If Apple infringed on a public university’s patent, that means Apple stole from taxpayers, and they deserve what they get.
He called them a patent troll because Business Insider did. And Business Insider called them a patent troll because Business Insider is basically an Apple fan site. (Go see articles written by Steve Kovach, their main tech writer.) All companies that sue Apple for patent infringement are by definition “patent trolls.” By contrast, all companies that sue Samsung, Google, Microsoft and other Apple competitors are legitimate innovators whose IP needs to be protected.
Other Apple blogs called Qualcomm a “patent troll” because Apple is refusing to comply by FRAND for using Qualcomm IP. This despite Qualcomm being A) one of the biggest R&D and telecom companies in the world and B) Qualcomm’s having invented 2G and LTE technology as a result. But because they are suing Apple, they are nothing but patent trolls holding onto worthless patents to bilk real innovators to do important stuff like “pinch to zoom” and other vital “look and feel” and UI/UX “technology.”
I agree. The pro-Apple camp have actually contributed to my decision to leave the iOS “walled garden”. It’s always about taking sides, about looking down your nose at people who prefer non-Apple products, about having the latest gadget to lord over your friends, about making excuses for the richest company to ever exist that doesn’t actually make anything. It’s exhausting!
The irony is that I have nothing against Apple tech. I own both Android and Apple devices, although lately I am leaning more towards Android because of the ecosystem thing (I don’t want to purchase apps a second time for iOS that I have already bought for Android for example) and I have some Windows and Linux stuff around too. I use whatever is best to achieve the task that I need to get done (and yes, price is a factor along with reliability and usability) and that is the attitude that REAL tech fans should have.
Really? You have nothing against Apple? Because you are probably one of the most vocal anti-apple voices I’ve seen. That’s fine and completely your right, but from the comments I’ve read you’re hardly impartial.
I agree with your last line about using whatever is best to achieve the task, but that’s an extremely personal choice. You can see be a real tech fan if Apple stuff is the best gear for YOU. Preferring Apple over something else doesn’t make you any less of a “tech fan” than anybody else.
Nothing’s ny in Wisconsin is respectable. They are patent trolls.
Who the fuck who want to go to University of Madison anyway?! Isn’t that exactly why university research is all about, making discoveries to benefit the world, and not themselves? Screw them, I hope they lose. Patent trolls they are, another frivolous lawsuit!
I REALLY hope that you are joking or trolling. I REALLY do.
The headline says that Apple is facing a $682 million fine because it infringed on the patent.
This is a totally FALSE statement.
It has _not_ been proven that Apple did indeed infringe, therefore, Apple does _not_ face this fine. If the plaintiff wins the suit and this is affirmed on appeal, THEN Apple will face the fine, not before.
A key thing about headlines is that they are supposed to represent the facts in the story, not be in conflict with them.