A Texas federal jury cleared Apple from alleged infringement of five wireless technology patents held by Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc., a Canada-based patent licensing company.
Core Wireless Licensing, a Conversant subsidiary, filed a lawsuit against Apple back in 2012 in Texas, claiming that Apple was using its patents for the transmission of wireless data in the company's iPhone and iPad devices without the permission of Core Wireless.
Core Wireless was seeking damages worth $100 million in the trial for the alleged infringement of the patents, which were originally owned by Nokia. Core Wireless claimed that it should receive a portion of the sales of the devices of Apple and that of similar devices that will be released in the future.
Apple, on the other hand, believed that damages, if there would be any, would not exceed the amount of $1 million.
It took five hours for the jury to deliberate on the matter before they delivered their verdict that cleared Apple of alleged patent infringement. The jury also declined the claim of Apple that Core Wireless did not meet its obligation of licensing its patents on terms that are fair and non-discriminatory.
Core Wireless, along with the 2,000 patents of Nokia that it owned, was acquired by Conversant in 2011. Back then, an agreement with Nokia showed that Microsoft also had a license to use the patents, revealed company documents of Conversant.
When it acquired Core Wireless, there was an agreement for Conversant to forward two-thirds of all revenues received from licensing and litigating the patents to Nokia and Microsoft. A representative from Microsoft, however, could not confirm that the agreement is still in effect.
The original lawsuit by Core Wireless claimed that Apple was guilty of infringing over a dozen of its held patents. However, last year, the company removed some patents from the list to be litigated on two occasions for streamlining the case, resulting in only five patents being left for the proceedings.
Apple is the most targeted company by so-called patent trolls, which are companies that earn revenues by licensing and litigating patents as opposed to actually making products that use the patents.
Just last month, Apple was ordered to pay damages worth $532.9 million, which is one of the biggest damage amounts for patent infringement ever, as the company was found to be guilty of infringing on three patents that are owned by Smartflash.
The infringed patents cover digital rights management, data storage and payment system access management, and were used by Apple in its iTunes software.
Photo: Race Bannon | Flickr
