Andre Yoskowitz
17 Oct 2015 20:52
Apple has lost the patent infringement case brought by the University of Wisconsin's Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), and must pay $234 million in damages.
The processor patent tech was ruled to have been used in Apple's A7, A8, and A8X processors, and WARF had initially asked for $862 million before reducing the damages request to $400 million.
U.S. District Judge William Conley had ruled earlier this week that Apple did not willfully infringe on WARF's patents so the damages are significantly lower than what was being asked for but still obviously very hefty.
"Table based data speculation circuit for parallel processing computer" (improving processor efficiency) was the patent in question and was granted in 1998. WARF sued Intel in 2008 over the patent and won $110 million. WARF uses its income to pay out grants to researchers, including $58 million last year.
Last month, the foundation sued Apple again, this time for their latest round of products, iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, and iPad Pro. Apple, the most profitable company on the planet, made $10.67 billion in net profit last quarter, alone.
Source:
Reuters