Apple wins appeal in millions case over CPU patent American university

Apple will not have to pay the University of Wisconsin $234 million for patent infringement. The fine was declared invalid because the jury that imposed it could never have reasonably established patent infringement.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that, Reuters reports. According to the judge, no reasonable juror could have determined from the evidence presented that Apple was infringing on university patents. The fine is therefore waived. The federal court where the case was heard specializes in patents, among other things.

Apple was sentenced by a jury court in 2015 to pay a $234 million fine for infringing a patent owned by the University of Wisconsin. It concerns a patent from 1998 that describes a technique to increase the efficiency of CPUs by predicting which instructions should be executed.

In 2017, the fine was increased by $272 million, for a total of $506 million, because Apple did not stop the patent infringement. It seems obvious that Apple will also end up under that fine, because it is based on the same jury decision.