Apple wants a federal judge to throw out the $5.7 billion patent verdict it lost to Taction Technology in September. In a motion filed Tuesday, the company argues Taction never gave the jury any evidence of what its technology was actually worth, which left jurors "with no choice but to engage in impermissible guesswork on a massive scale."
Taction sued in April 2021, claiming the Taptic Engine, the haptics motor inside iPhones and Apple Watches, infringes two of its patents. The jury sided with Taction but found the infringement wasn't willful. Apple's filing says the court had already excluded Taction's damages expert before trial, and that Taction ended up asking jurors to "award a reasonable royalty that y'all think is appropriate." Apple calls the result "the largest patent verdict in history, by more than $3 billion," and notes the judge told attorneys before it was read that he was "not sure that the figure that appears on the verdict form is what the jury meant to convey."
On the technical side, Apple says Taction's infringement case rested on a test "rigged" by its expert for this lawsuit, and that if Taction's reading of the patents holds, the patents are invalid anyway.
Apple is asking the court to rule that it owes nothing and didn't infringe, or failing that, to order a new trial on infringement, validity and damages. The verdict hasn't been entered as a final judgment yet, so this comes before any formal appeal.
— via 9to5Mac