Apple Ordered to Pay $23.6 Million for Infringing Pager Technology Patents

Apple must pay $23.6 million after it was found to be infringing multiple patented technologies of a Texas-based telecommunications company, reports Bloomberg.

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The jury has found that Apple’s Wi-Fi products and iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices used pager technology patented by Mobile Telecommunications Technologies LLC back in the 1990s without permission. The six patents presented by the company were found valid and infringed, said a federal jury in Marshall, Texas, yesterday. Interestingly, though, Bloomberg found that MTel’s patents are either newly expired or nearing the end of their terms. However, that didn’t stop the court ruling in favour of MTel.

When it filed the lawsuit, MTel claimed that Apple’s iDevices rely on foundational technology for the transmission and storage of messages and should pay a royalty of $1 per device, or $237 million.

Apple’s position was straightforward right from the start: it denied any infringement and also emphasized that the patents were invalid because they failed to cover any new innovations even when they were first issued. Apple’s lawyer, Brian Ferguson, said that MTel is entitled to a maximum of only $1 million.

The royalty, however, was also found to be too high by jury, as the ruling suggests.

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