In a long and drawn-out Patent Infringement lawsuit, Apple has recently been sentenced to pay $85 million to Canadian patent firm Wilan for violating wireless patents.
The case, for which the U.S. District Court for Southern District of California (San Diego) made this latest ruling, has been bouncing around for the past many years. The jury now ruled that Apple did infringe upon the patents and would have to fork over the payment to Quarterhill Inc., the parent organization of Wilan.
Although this seems a hefty amount for Apple to give out, it could have been worse or worst. In the year 2018, a different jury in the same suit decided that Apple should pay Wilan a sum of $145.1 million for damages because of patent infringement.
Nevertheless, Apple disagreed with the 2018’s court verdict saying that the damages were calculated inaccurately. Then, after the previous decision was disputed, a judge agreed with Apple that the damages were unsuitable or high and proposed Wilan to either accept $10 million in damages or go back to court. Well, the case once again went back to court, resulting in the sum of $85 million for Apple.
The case revolves around two wireless communication patents held by Wilan. One related to ‘a method and apparatus for allocating bandwidth in any broadband wireless communication system’ (U.S. Patent numbered 8457145). Other associated ‘with communication systems and with methods and systems for implementing adaptive call admission control’ (U.S. patent numbered 8537757).
According to the long history of animosity amid the two companies, Quarterhill has often taken Apple to courts but mostly turned unsuccessful in its fight, as judges not usually convinced that its patents entitled to gain from the sales of devices such as iPhones.
Apple has also been accused of infringing on patents by many other companies. For instance, Apple has been involved in a long legal fight with Qualcomm over royalties for the Intel modems deployed in certain iPhone models. Moreover, there’s a claim from an Israeli company named Corephotonics Ltd. that Apple imitated its dual-lens camera technology for the iPhone. Apple, on the other hand, has also brought Samsung into the court over claims that the South Korean multinational conglomerate copied its iPhone.
Although it seems likely that Apple will appeal this latest ruling, the company has not yet announced whether it plans to do so or not. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com
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