Caltech reaches ‘potential settlement’ in its legal battle with Apple, Broadcom

Reuters reports that the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has reached a “potential settlement” in a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple and Broadcom over Wi-Fi chips, according to a Thursday filing in federal court.

Caltech previously won a verdict of more than $1.1 billion from Apple and Broadcom in the case that was later overturned. Reuters notes that the potential settlement was disclosed in a court document filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles without further details following a telephone conference. It was unclear if the agreement involved both Apple and Broadcom.

This is the latest development in the ongoing legal brouhaha. In 2016 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 sought monetary damages. 

In January 2020, a California federal jury ruled that Apple and Broadcom infringed three Caltech data transmission patents with Wi-Fi chips used in hundreds of millions of iPhones and other devices, awarding the university over $1.1 billion in damages. Apple was ordered to pay $837.8 million, and Broadcom was hit with a $270.2 million verdict, according to lawyers for Caltech. 

Apple and Broadcom appealed. However, in April, the Federal Circuit rejected Apple‘s bid to overturn a patent board decision upholding Caltech’s patent for wireless data transmissions. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled in favor of Caltech in 2018 after reviewing U.S. Patent No. 7,116,710 while Caltech’s parallel infringement case proceeded in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.