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Apple prevails in iPhone patent challenge
Naomi Prioleau nprioleau@marshallnewsmessenger.com | Posted: Thursday, October 24, 2013 4:00 am
Wi-LAN, Inc. lost its patent-infringement trial against Apple, Inc. on Wednesday after spending more than a week in court. The company was seeking $248 million in damages from the iPhone makers.
The jury determined that wireless patent, U.S. Patent no. RE37, 802 wasn’t infringed and claims one and ten were found invalid.
A press release on Wi-LAN’s website expressed the company’s disappointment with the verdict.
“WiLAN is disappointed with the jury's decision and is currently reviewing its options with trial counsel, McKool Smith,” the release said. “WiLAN does not believe previous license agreements signed related to the patents are negatively impacted by this decision.”
On September 2, 2011, the company announced that they were beginning litigation against various companies in the state claiming infringement of the 802 patent. The Canada-based technology and licensing company noted that Apple infringed the patent as it used some of their same wireless technologies used in a computer in a cell phone.
During the closing arguments of the trial, Robert Cote of McKool Smith law firm, representing Wi-LAN told the jurors that they had been “duped” by the defendants.
“Given what you’ve seen and heard and them saying there’s no real infringement and that it’s made up, you’ve been duped,” he said. “This is willful infringement and they’re focused on cherry picking a number of licenses.”
He added that many of the experts called up to the stand throughout the trial gave jurors the wrong information.
“Experts sat here and smiled and said the patent was invalid, they said the randomizer transform was a part of the claim and that the patent was anticipated and that’s just not right,” Cote said.
Mark Scarsi, representing Apple, said in his closing arguments that Wi-LAN was being unreasonable throughout the entire trial.
“Wi-LAN added a whole bunch of things to the claim and they’re not allowed to do that, that’s not fair,” he said. “They can’t get to damages because the patent was not infringed. The patent is invalid; Wi-LAN was being unreasonable in this case. Apple never needed to use Wi-LAN, they always had their own micro-chip in technology that they could rely on.”
This is Wi-LAN’s second time losing in court this year after reaching settlements with Samsung Dell and HP earlier in the year.
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