Apple ordered by Jury to pay $532.9 million in patent trial


Apple has been ordered by the Jury to pay $533 million for infringing patents with iTunes, as per a report from Bloomberg. The company was asked to pay for infringing three patents owned by Smartflash, a Texas-based patent licensing company.

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Smartflash had been asking for $852 million in damages while Apple has said is was only  worth $4.5 million the most. The dispute is over digital rights management and inventions related to data storage and managing access through payment systems. Smartflash sued Apple in 2013 and claimed that iTunes used the inventions in applications such as Game Circus Llc’s Coin Dozer and 4 Pics 1 Movie.

“Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no U.S. presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented. We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system.”

Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman, said in a statement to Bloomberg Business.

Apple tried to get out of paying any royalties at all by arguing that the infringed features weren’t the reason people bought iPhones, saying, “People do not buy cell phones for the sole purpose of using apps.”  Smartflash is reportedly using same patents in separate case against Apple rival Samsung.


Author: Sneha Bokil

Sneha Bokil is a tech enthusiast and is currently using OnePlus 3T but she still treasures her Nokia N70 (M). You can follow her on Twitter @snehabokil and on Google+