Apple to pay $234 mln to WARF in patent infringement lawsuit

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), a non-profit foundation that serves as the technology transfer arm of the University of Wisconsin–Madison by patenting and commercializing campus inventions, has won a jury verdict against Apple Inc. and has been awarded $234 million in damages, the organisation said in a press release.

"This is a case where the hard work of our university researchers and the integrity of patenting and licensing discoveries has prevailed," said Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of WARF. "The jury recognized the seminal computer processing work that took place on our campus. This decision is great news for the inventors, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and for WARF."

WARF filed the lawsuit filed in 2014 claiming that the iPhone maker had used its technology to “speed computer processing by allowing the efficient out-of-order execution of computer instructions with a data speculation circuit that WARF itself had patented several years earlier”. The jury found that Apple did, in fact, infringe a WARF owned patent.

The jury found the asserted claims to be valid. Some of the Apple products that benefited from the WARF patented technology include Apple's A7, A8 and A8X processors which are found in the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus, as well as several versions of the iPad.

"The jury did an incredible job grappling with the complex technology, and we're grateful for their effort and ultimately for the well-deserved respect that this groundbreaking work by faculty and graduate students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison received," commented Michael Falk, WARF General Counsel.

Apple has been ordered to pay $234 million in damages. The amount is less than the $400 million the WARF was claiming in damages. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled that Apple had not willfully infringed WARF's patent, eliminating a chance to triple the damages in the case, Reuters reported.