Back in 2014 University of Wisconsin’s Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF has filed patent infringement lawsuit against Apple claiming that Apple’s A series chipset on iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus smartphones infringed a 1998 patent for boosting the efficiency of integrated circuits. Apple was later ordered to pay damages of around $234 million.
Apple subsequently filed an appeal and now has finally succeeded as the judgment is being reversed. Apple was originally ordered to pay a damage sum of $862M for infringement of the patent, however, the sum was later reduced to $234 millions after the judge ruled that Apple’s infringement was inadvertent rather than willful. That didn’t last long as sum was subsequently doubled to $506M in 2017 as U.S. District Judge William Conley in Madison ordered to pay another $272 million on one basis that Apple continued to infringe the patent after the ruling.
Apple later argued that it is invalid and even the damage calculations would have been wrong even in the event of a valid claim. Now according to reports, the court has ruled that there was no infringement. But it is not clear whether the court has ruled basing on the validity of the patent, or only on the infringement claim itself. Chief Judge Sharon Prost wrote for the Washington, D.C.-based appeals court that “we hold no reasonable juror could have found literal infringement in this case.”