iPhone 11Source: iMore

What you need to know

  • A court has refused to invalidate a patent at the heart of a dispute between Apple and Caltech.
  • It means that Apple remains on the hook for $838 million.
  • A jury ruled that Apple had infringed on four patents relating to WiFi transmissions.

A court has refused to invalidate a patent at the center of a dispute between Apple and the California Institue of Technology.

As it stands, Apple remains liable to pay $838 million for infringing four separate patents relating to WiFi transmissions. As reported by Reuters:

A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to rule invalid one of the patents underlying a $1.1 billion verdict the California Institute of Technology won against Apple Inc and Broadcom Inc.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by an administrative patent court that upheld the validity of a Caltech patent challenged by Apple on obviousness grounds.

In January, Apple and Broadcom were ordered to pay Caltech a combined total of $1.1 billion over patent infringement. $837.8 million of that is owed by Apple. From that report:

A California jury has ordered that Apple and Broadcom pay $1.1 billion in damages for patent infringement on Wednesday. As reported by Bloomberg, both companies have been found guilty of infringing on WiFi technologies developed by the California Institute of Technology.

According to lawyers for the college, Apple has specifically been ordered to pay $837.8 million, whereas Broadcom is responsible for $270.2 million. The verdict has resulted in the largest payout of the year so far and is apparently the sixth-largest patent verdict of all time.

It is likely that Apple will further appeal the verdict in the case, now the court has refused to invalidate one of the patents in question.