Apple seems to be in a bit of trouble as it was ordered to pay a whopping sum of over $439 million for patent infringement. Back in 2010, IP Holding Company, VirnetX accused Apple of using its patents without licensing them. These patents include features on iOS like FaceTime and iMessage. Despite the court case, Apple went ahead and used these features in other iPhone models and sometime last year, VirnetX was awarded $302.4 million by a US jury.
Afer the ruling, there were numerous post-trial motions and on September 29, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division entered a Final Judgment where it gave VirnetX a clean sweep. VirnetX’s royalty rate was increased by 50%, adding $41.2 million to the previous award and all Apple’s motions were denied. The increased royalty rate is not all that Apple has to pay, it also has to pay another $96 million in attorney fees and interest which now brings the final figure to $439,727,418. This includes the jury verdict, willful infringement, interest, costs and attorney fees.
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The CEO and President of VirnetX, Kendall Larsen, said
“We are elated with the Court’s Final Judgement of $439 million in that not only did it affirm the jury’s verdict of $1.20 per infringing iPhone, iPad and Mac Product, but also added for willful infringement, interest and attorney fees. This is the third time a jury has ruled in our favor against Apple. This Final Judgement amount is large because sales of Apple’s infringing products are large. The cost of our security technology in infringing devices has been apportioned and is less than a quarter of one percent of the device’s cost. We believe this established per device rate for security is very reasonable and will greatly assist us with our domestic and global licensing efforts.”
Apple says that it plans to appeal the verdict.
