A U.S. jury ordered Apple Inc to pay the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s patent licensing arm more than $234 million in damages for incorporating its microchip technology into some of the company’s iPhones and iPads without permission.
However, the amount is less than the $400 million the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) was claiming.
What was the issue?
- In January 2014, the WARF (the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s patent licensing arm) filed a case against the Apple alleging infringement of its 1998 patent on a “predictor circuit”.
- The predictor circuit was developed by a team led by Indian-origin computer science professors Gurindar Sohi and Terani Vijaykumar.
- As per the WARF, the technology was used by Apple for improving the performance of its computer processors namely A7, A8 and A8X processors, found in the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus and recently released iPhone 6s and 6s plus as well as several versions of the iPad.
- So, the WARF sued the leading chip maker Intel Corp (INTC.O) for infringing the same patent in 2008 and got 110 million US dollars as compensation.
