The ongoing legal brouhaha between Apple and Smartflash turn another turn in the former’s favor this week, notes AppleInsider. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week upheld an earlier ruling by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
In November 2016, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board invalidated the asserted claims of three Smartflash media storage patents. And in March 2017 a federal appeals court has tossed a jury verdict that had required Apple to pay $533 million to Smartflash.
Filed in 2013, the original lawsuit claims that the iTunes Store, the iOS and Mac App Store, and Apple’s other transaction services infringe on three Smartflash patents that cover “data storage and managing access through payment systems.” The company originally was seeking $852 million in damages, but was awarded $533 million as part of the jury’s decision. Apple had protested the damages as being too high because the jurors might have considered the entire market value of the products instead of focusing just on patented features.
