Violating patents? That’s a paddlin’.
A two week trial looking into Apple’s use of certain devices patented by Quacomm has concluded on Friday. And the jury found in favor of Qualcomm, by whom Apple was accused of violating three patents in certain iPhones. The jury awarded them over $31 million in damages. This was the full amount Qualcomm sought, despite the fact that Apple won a hearing to reduce payout earlier in the year.
Qualcomm filed the suit in 2017. The patents in question deal with phones being able to quickly access the internet after being turned on, battery and graphics processing, and traffic management to allow apps to download faster.
Per Cnet, Apple argued that an engineer by the name of Arjuna Siva made some important contributions to their boot up technology an should have been named in the patent. Siva (now with Google) was reticent to appear in court at first, but eventually decided to testify on Monday. The jury struck down Apple’s claim that Siva should be named in the document
Apple has made the claim that Qualcomm has filed this suit, and others, as retribution for Apple ending their exclusive arrangement to use Qualcomm’s chips in iPhones. Qualcomm was the sole supplier of these chips from 2011 to 2016. Since 2016, Apple has been using Intel chips as well in their phones, ending that exclusivity.
This is far from the only court case involving the two companies going right now. Next month will see the beginning of a trial, also in San Diego, over the payment of royalties. There’s also another trial from January, with results pending. These battles have also been played out in foreign courts; a loss in the German courts saw certain iPhone models banned from sale in the country, until Apple swapped out the Qualcomm chip-based models for Intel ones. Finally, Apple, Intel, and the FTC have accuse Qualcomm of monopolizing the market for modems in phones.
Source: Engadget
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