Apple ordered to pay $234 million to university for infringing patent

Reuters ^ | October 16, 2015 | BY ANDREW CHUNG

[Swordmaker]

A U.S. jury on Friday ordered Apple Inc (AAPL.O) 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.

The amount was less than the $400 million the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) was claiming in damages after the jury on Tuesday said Apple (AAPL.O) infringed its patent for improving the performance of computer processors.

Apple said it would appeal the verdict, but declined to comment further.

WARF praised the verdict and said it was important to protect the university's inventions from unauthorized use. "This decision is great news," said WARF Managing Director Carl Gulbrandsen in a statement.

Jurors deliberated for about 3-1/2 hours before returning the verdict in the closely watched case in federal court in Madison, Wisconsin. It was the second phase of a trial that began on Oct. 5.

[Swordmaker]

Amazing. . . The judge granted a WARF motion excluding an Apple expert's testimony in re the literally hundreds of other predictive patents granted by the US Patent Office to third party inventors that did NOT infringe WARF's algorthm or circuit in the seventeen years since the granting of WARF's patent which properly cited WARF'S invention's contribution to the art, but moved on, without infringing the WARF patent because, in WARF's un-litigated and un-adjudicated opinion, they were infringing their patents. Again, these patents and the experts opinion would be confusing and prejudicial to the jury. Say what??? Facts and independent expert testimony are excluded because the plaintiff doesn't like them?

[martin_fierro]

Jurors deliberated for about 3-1/2 hours before returning the verdict in the closely watched case in federal court in Madison, Wisconsin.

Hey, Montel was on.