Apple and Broadcom infringed several California Institute of Technology (Caltech) patents with Wi-Fi chips installed in roughly 1.5 billion iPhone, iPad, and MacBook devices sold over the last decade, the university’s attorney told a California federal jury as the trial got underway Wednesday, reports Law360 (a subscription is required to read the entire article).
In May 2016 Apple and Broadcom were jointly named as defendants in a legal complaint filed by Caltech over alleged infringement of nine patented Wi-Fi-related technologies. In the court filing with the U.S. District Court for Central California, Caltech accused Apple of selling various iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models, along with other Wi-Fi products, that incorporate IRA/LDPC encoders and/or decoders and allegedly infringe on its patents. The university is seeking monetary damages.
In 2015 Caltech sued Canon, Nikon and 4 other digital-camera makers, for infringing on six patents relating to pixel sensors in digital cameras. All of the patents came after research the university was doing for NASA.
