Apple has asked a federal judge in San Diego to throw out a $5.7 billion jury verdict — the largest patent award in U.S. history — won last month by a small company that says the tech giant borrowed its ideas for the taps and buzzes in iPhones and Apple Watches. In a filing this week, Apple told the court the award was “untethered to any evidence at all” and amounted to little more than “impermissible guesswork on a massive scale.” The company argues that Taction Technology never showed the jury what its patents were actually worth, leaving jurors to invent a number instead. It also says its own Taptic Engine works differently from the technology described in Taction’s patents, and that one of Taction’s key experts used a testing method invented for the lawsuit rather than the one set out in the patents themselves. The case has been running since 2021. Taction, which builds haptic systems into headphones and gaming headsets, claimed Apple’s Taptic Engine — small actuator that makes the phone or watch tap when you press a button or get a notification — infringes two of its patents covering damped, electromagnetically driven vibrations. A jury agreed on September 25th, finding infringement of specific claims in the two patents and awarding $5.72 billion. It did not find that Apple’s infringement was willful. Apple points to an unusual moment in court: before the verdict was even read, Judge Todd Robinson reportedly told the lawyers he was “not sure that the figure that appears on the verdict form is what the jury meant to convey.” The company is asking the judge to rule that it did not infringe, that Taction is entitled to nothing, or at least to order a new trial on infringement, validity, and damages. Big patent verdicts often shrink or disappear later. Several previous awards over a billion dollars have been overturned or cut on appeal, and Apple is counting on that pattern. Taction’s side has not yet responded publicly to the new motion. The judge has not ruled, and any decision is expected to be appealed either way — most likely to the Federal Circuit, which already revived the case once after an earlier dismissal. For now, the $5.7 billion figure remains a jury’s number, not a final bill. Apple continues to insist its technology is fundamentally different and that it never used Taction’s inventions. Taction’s lawyers have said the verdict simply vindicated patents the company waited more than five years to defend in court. The next round of legal arguments will decide which of those views the judge accepts. MacDailyNews Take: This ludicrous $5.7 billion jury verdict must get tossed. Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon. The post Apple asks judge to toss record $5.7 billion verdict over iPhone and Watch haptics appeared first on MacDailyNews. Invite your friends and earn rewards
If you enjoy MacDailyNews, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment