Apple has managed to persuade a federal appeals court to reverse a decision made last year regarding a patent infringement lawsuit filed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. According to a report by Reuters, the US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals said that Apple “deserved judgement as a matter of law, because jurors could not have found infringement based on evidence introduced in the liability of a 2015 trial.
To recall, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) had sued Apple in 2014, claiming that the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus smartphones infringed a 1998 patent that described a means to improve performance by predicting the instructions given by users. The prediction cuit was reportedly used in the Apple A7, A8 and A8X chips found in the phones.
In October 2015, WARF won the patent lawsuit as the jury declared that Apple owed $234 million in damage. However, US District Judge, William Conley added $272 million to the initial amount as additional damaged plus interest. He said that WARF is owed a$506 million because Apple continued to infringe the patent till it expired in December 2016.
Of course, this isn’t the only legal battle that the Cupertino based company is wrangling at the moment. Chipset maker, Qualcomm has sued Apple, claiming that the iPhone-maker was stealing “vast swathes” of confidential information related to chips and trading secrets with Intel to improve the performance of its rival’s chips.