Apple tried to get a single patent invalidated related to its ongoing court battle with Caltech, but it didn’t turn out that way.
As reported by Reuters today, Apple has lost its bid to get a patent related to the case with Caltech invalidated. The decision was made by a federal appeals court on Thursday. The California Institute of Technology won a decision against Apple and Broadcom, Inc. worth a total of $1.1 billion.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by an administrative patent court that upheld the validity of a Caltech patent challenged by Apple on obviousness grounds.
Caltech’s lawsuit against Apple and Broadcom dates back to 2016 when the institute said that Apple was infringing on four patents used by the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, the Apple Watch, and Apple’s Airport routers. At the time, Caltech was seeking permanent and preliminary injunctions in the United States against Apple in the products that were using its technologies. Caltech also sought a jury trial.
In January of this year, we reported that Apple was ordered to pay Caltech $838 million for the WiFi patent infringement. Meanwhile, Broadcom was ordered to pay $270 million.
As it stands right now, it looks like Apple will have to pay that large lump sum to Caltech.