Court Orders Apple to Pay $85.2 Million to WiLan in Patent Infringement Case

Jury rules #Apple must pay WiLAN $85M for patent infringementhttps://t.co/3ub4oZrZOZ pic.twitter.com/lWpwG8OgF1

— AppleInsider (@appleinsider) January 27, 2020

An End to a Years-Long Battle

The patents in the dispute are US patents 8,457,145 and 8,537,757. Both are owned by Quarterhill Inc. (WiLan’s parent company and the first one describes a method for requesting bandwidth in a wireless communication system. The second, on the other hand, is related to the use of adaptive call admission control (CAC). In WilLan’s original lawsuit, the firm accused Apple of using both technologies in its iPhone 6 and 7 range of products without paying licensing fees. The case itself has been moving in and out of court for years. For Apple, things could have gone far worse than it has. Back in 2018, Apple was ordered by a different court in California to make $145.1 million in payments to the firm, based on the same accusation of patent infringement and defaulting payments. However, Apple challenged the court’s ruling, claiming that the method of calculating the damages was inaccurate. District Judge Dana Sabraw agreed that the penalty levied on Apple was too high, proposing a $10 million settlement to WiLan or go back to court. WiLan chose the latter, where it won a larger settlement.

Apple’s Many Patent Woes

The latest patent dispute isn’t the first case of animosity between Apple and Quarterhill. Then Canadian firm has sued Apple in the past, accusing it of infringing on several of its patents. Back in 2013, another WiLAN patent- related to HSPA and MDA wireless communication technologies- saw both companies go head to head. However, this is the first notable victory it’s recording, and while it’s not as much as it could have been, it does mark a victory nonetheless. It’s not entirely surprising that it will go against Apple on several occasions. WiLan has garnered a reputation for being a patent troll- essentially, a company whose raison d’etre is to make money off lawsuits such as these- and given that Apple is a trillion-dollar company, it is a big target for such colonies.

Apple’s workaround to Qualcomm patent woes in Germany is to use Qualcomm chips https://t.co/zISpLV26DY pic.twitter.com/toIxnZ7nFN

— The Verge (@verge) February 14, 2019

Apple, on the other hand, has been accused of patent infringement on multiple occasions. The firm is still at odds with microprocessor manufacturer Qualcomm over royalties for the Intel fees used in several iPhone models. Corephotonics, a tech firm based out of Israel, has also accused the firm of copying its dual-lens camera technology for several iPhone models.

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