Apple is asking a federal judge to overturn the $5.7 billion verdict in a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Taction Technology over the Taptic Engine used in iPhones and Apple Watches. Here are the details.
“Inadmissible hypotheses on a large scale”
A few weeks ago, a jury ordered Apple to pay $5.7 billion for infringing two patents held by Taction Technology, related to the Taptic Engine that currently powers haptic feedback on its devices.
At the time, Apple said it strongly disagreed with the jury’s verdict and damages awarded, which it called “wholly unsupported by the facts.”
Apple stressed that its technology is “fundamentally different” from that covered by Taction’s two patents and announced its intention to appeal.
Today, Apple filed a new motion asking the court to overturn the jury’s verdict, arguing that Taction failed to present sufficient evidence to support an award of damages, let alone $5.7 billion, which the company says is “the largest patent verdict in history, by more than $3 billion.”
Apple adds that before the trial, the court excluded Taction’s damages expert’s analysis due to flaws in how the expert calculated royalties from a previous licensing agreement, and that the expert was subsequently barred from testifying altogether.
Apple also notes that Taction never presented evidence establishing how much its patented technology was worth. Instead, he simply asked jurors to award whatever they considered a reasonable royalty, leaving them “no choice but to engage in impermissible conjecture on a massive scale.”
From Apple’s motion:
Taction told the jury that he was “only looking for a reasonable royalty for his contribution”, […]but he never offered evidence of the value of that contribution. Instead, he asked the jury to “award a reasonable royalty that you deem appropriate.” […] Taction failed to meet its burden of presenting evidence that would have allowed the jury to “adequately associate a dollar amount to the acts of infringement,” […]. Without any such evidence, the jury was left to speculate, contrary to the Court’s instructions and the binding jurisprudence of the Federal Circuit.
Apple also notes that, before the award was announced, the judge told lawyers that he was “unsure if the figure that appears on the verdict form is what the jury intended to convey,” raising questions about whether the $5.7 billion figure was what the jury actually intended.
In a more egregious allegation, Apple alleges that one of Taction’s leading technical experts, Dr. Oliver, relied on a “rigged” test to support his conclusions of patent infringement.
In essence, both Taction patents in question describe technology designed to produce coherent vibrations at different frequencies. Apple claims that its Taptic Engine works differently, producing much stronger vibrations at certain frequencies than others.
The company goes on to say that Dr. Oliver developed a new testing method specifically for the lawsuit, which measured how well Apple’s electronic control system could regulate the Taptic Engine’s vibrations, rather than whether the underlying hardware met the patents’ requirements.
From the store:
No reasonable juror could believe that “transducer output is severely damped” in the accused products, as required by the Court’s construction. Rather than evaluating severely attenuated production using the patent test, Taction’s theory of infringement was based on a legally flawed test rigged by Dr. Oliver for this case. The only evidence of actual transducer performance, including pre-deposit and Taction breach tests, was introduced by Apple, and those tests showed a peak response that Dr. Oliver admitted was not very attenuated.
Finally, Apple argues that if Taction’s interpretation of its patents were accepted, the patent claims at issue themselves would be invalid. According to the company, the testing method used to establish infringement contradicts the method described in the patents, making it impossible to clearly determine what the patents actually cover.
For these reasons, Apple is asking the court to overturn the jury’s verdict, find that Taction is not entitled to any compensation, and find that Apple did not infringe the (possibly invalid) patents. Alternatively, the company requests a new trial for infringement, patent validity and damages.
With Apple’s motion now filed and the jury’s verdict not yet formally recorded as a final judgment, the court will now consider whether to uphold the $5.7 billion award, overturn the verdict, or order a new trial.
What is your opinion on Apple’s arguments? Let us know in the comments.
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