Apple Ordered to Pay $506 Million to Optis Wireless for LTE Patent Infringement

Apple has been ordered by a Texas federal jury to pay PanOptis $506 million for the willful infringement of a handful of 4G LTE technology-related patents.

Law360 reports the jury said that Apple did not prove that PanOptis’ patent claims were invalid. PanOptis first filed the lawsuit against Apple in February 2019, accusing the Cupertino firm of violating seven patents related to LTE standards.

PanOptis claimed that the LTE-enabled products Apple makes – which include the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch – infringe on all of its LTE patents. PanOptis had requested damages “in the form of reasonable royalties” when it demanded a jury trial last year.

The patents at the heart of the infringement case:

• “Method and Apparatus for Transmitting and Receiving Shared Control Channel Message in a Wireless Communication System Using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access”
• “Method for Transmitting and Receiving Control Information through PDCCH”
• “Mobile Station Apparatus and Random Access Method”
• “System and Method for Channel Estimation in a Delay Diversity Wireless Communication System”
• “Method for Transmitting Uplink Signals”
• “Mode switching between SU-MIMO and MU-MIMO.”
• “Control channel signaling using a common signaling field for transport format and redundancy version”

PanOptis and its sister companies, Optis Wireless Technology, Optis Cellular Technology, Unwired Planet, and Unwired Planet International, are (say it with me) “non-practicing entities that hold patents and generate revenue through patent litigation.” (AKA Patent trolls.)

Apple is expected to appeal today’s decision.