Apple Owes Quarterhill $85 Million in Royalties, U.S. Jury Says
Apple must pay Quarterhill’s WiLan $85 million for infringing patents related to wireless communications.
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. must pay Quarterhill Inc.’s WiLan $85 million for infringing patents related to wireless communications, a jury in San Diego ruled.
WiLan’s two patents cover ways to make phone calls and download data at the same time. A different jury in 2018 said Apple infringed the patents and awarded $145 million, but a new trial was ordered to reconsider the damages.
WiLan, which has been in a mostly unsuccessful fight with Apple over royalties for the past decade, got the amount it asked for based on iPhones sales. Apple argued in court papers that WiLan hadn’t provided enough evidence to help the jury determine it was entitled to anything.
Last year, District Judge Dana Sabraw refused to throw out the infringement finding in the first trial even as he agreed with Apple that WiLan had used an incorrect method to calculate the appropriate royalty rate. He said WiLan should accept $10 million or there would be a new trial. WiLan opted for the new trial.
Licensing accounted for more than half of Ottawa-based Quarterhill’s $107.6 million in sales in the first nine months of the year, the company said in November.
The case is Apple Inc. v. Wi-Lan Inc., 14-2245, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California (San Diego)
To contact the reporters on this story: Malathi Nayak in San Francisco at mnayak21@bloomberg.net;Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, ;Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider
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