Apple to Appeal Patent Infringement Lawsuit Ruling, Doesn't Want to Pay Over $530M to Smartflash Company 'With No US Presence'
A federal jury in Texas has ordered Apple Inc. to pay $532.9 million after finding the company guilty of infringing upon three patents owned by Smartflash LLC.
Smartflash is a Texas-based company that licenses seven data storage patents owned by CEO Patrick Racz. He is also the company's sole employee.
Smartflash sued Apple in May 2013 for infringing its patents, Reuters reports. The company originally asked for $852 million in damages from the sale of Apple products including the iTunes software, Macintosh computers, iPhones and iPads. According to CNN, Smartflash claimed Apple violated three patents related to storing and managing data and that the company's technology was unlawfully used by several iTunes apps, including Robot Entertainment's Hero Academy, KingIsle's Wizard 101 and Game Circus' Coin Dozer.
The jury deliberated for eight hours and determined Apple has not only violated Smartflash's patents without permission, but did so knowingly.
"Smartflash is very happy with the jury's verdict, which recognizes Apple's longstanding willful infringement," Brad Caldwell, a lawyer for Smartflash, told Reuters.
Apple claims Smartflash is owed little more than $4.5 million and plans to appeal the court's decision. The company says Smartflash is taking advantage of America's patent system and claims the patents the company holds are invalid.
"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," said Rachel Wolf, spokeswoman for Apple. "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."
Apple originally tried to have the suit thrown out.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, the judge presiding over the case, ruled Smartflash's technology was not too basic to deserve the patents.
Smartflash has also filed patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung Electronics, HTC Corp and Google.
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