The licensing arm of the University of Wisconsin-Madison wants the Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a Federal Circuit decision that axed a lower court’s award of $506 million in damages in a patent infringement case against Apple, according to the legal news site, Law360.
In early 2013, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) filed a lawsuit saying that Apple’s A7 processor (which is now up to version A9) infringed a university-developed patent that improves “the efficiency and performance of contemporary computer processors. The patent (number 5,781,752) is for a “table based data speculation circuit for a parallel processing computer.”
In October 2016, U.S. District Court Judge William M. Conley agreed with a jury’s finding that Apple infringed on six claims of a patent with its A7 and A8 system-on-chip designs. The judge dismissed Apple’s motions for judgment as a matter of law on liability, literal infringement claims and damages.
On the bright side for Apple, the jury didn’t find find Apple to have willfully infringed on the patent, so WARF’s bid to significantly enhance damages was nixed. However, the research foundation is still hoping to get the full $506 million in damages.
