Apple Could Owe Caltech $837 Million

Here’s one you may have missed.

Just as coverage of the Coronavirus was kicking into high gear, Caltech secured a major court victory in March.

Apple failed to invalidate one of the patents at the heart of a $1.1 billion lawsuit.

As a result, Apple and Broadcom were ordered to pay damages to Caltech for patent infringement after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed Apple’s plea to ignore and invalidate a patent in the case on the grounds of its “obviousness.”

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) sued Apple and Broadcom in 2016, alleging that both technology vendors were infringing on patents belonging to the institute. Caltech claimed that Broadcom chips, used in Apple devices, including the iPhone, used technology that had not been licensed.

Apple and Broadcom denied any wrongdoing, but a Californian court did not agree and has ordered Apple to pay $837.8 million, while Broadcom has a bill of $270.2 million.

The iPad and iPhone maker claimed in court that the firm should not be involved in the lawsuit whatsoever as an “indirect downstream party.”

Caltech says the institution is “committed to protecting its intellectual property.”

“We are pleased the jury found that Apple and Broadcom infringed Caltech patents,” Caltech said in a statement. “As a non-profit institution of higher education, Caltech is committed to protecting its intellectual property in furtherance of its mission to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education.”

Bloomberg reported that this was the 6th largest patent-related verdict ever. Naturally, both Apple and Broadcom have voiced that they plan to appeal the ruling.

This is not the only lawsuit Apple is involved in worldwide. Another case of note is that against Corellium, a company which offers virtualized copies of popular operating systems including iOS and Android.

Corellium says that its products can be used by researchers to find and flag security vulnerabilities without damaging their devices, thereby benefiting the cybersecurity industry as a whole. The software is also only available to established researchers and vendors, rather than the general public.

However, Apple does not take this view and filed a lawsuit against the company in August 2019, alleging that Corellium is infringing on the tech giant’s intellectual property.

Corellium has recently released a tool that allows users to install Android on older iPhone models, a move that may further increase Apple’s ire.