Just a few days after a obtained an important victory over Qualcomm in a process taking place in the USA, last night Apple lost in another. A jury decided that Apple infringed three invention patents of those from Qualcomm with the products it launched, and must pay damages worth 31 million dollars to the company.
Apple argued that Qualcomm patented a technology that was created by one of its engineers, but the judge in the trial did not support the claims of those from Cupertino. If the jury had given them a win because of Apple, then the lawsuit would have been won by those from Cupertino, but the jury was of the opinion that Qualcomm acted legally.
Apple LOST a lawsuit against Qualcomm
This process is insignificant compared to the one in which Qualcomm had a preliminary decision imposed against it, to pay damages of 1 billion dollars to Apple. That process is much more important, because Qualcomm has a much larger amount to lose if it fails to prove that Apple has really violated the agreements it had with it.
The jury also struck down an argument by Apple that one of its then-employees contributed to the boot-up patent, and should have been named as an inventor. That would have meant the patent was invalid and unable to be infringed. Despite Curiel's ruling, however, there is still a lot undecided. The decision will not be final until after next month's trial. Furthermore, Apple's contract factories have already withheld $1 billion in payments to Qualcomm. Thus, Qualcomm has already accounted for this in its financial statements and it will not need to cut a check to Apple.
Apple declared itself disappointed, of course, by the decision taken by the jury, but of course it is not too worried, since it has another decision in front of it that can bring an even more important amount of money to its accounts. The final decision in the other process is still quite far away, so Apple will have to wait until it knows the final result.
