The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear the University of Wisconsin's appeal in its patent fight with Apple, according to Reuters.

ipad iphone ios 8
In July 2017, a U.S. district court ordered Apple to pay $506 million to the University of Wisconsin's Alumni Research Foundation for infringing on a patent related to computer processing technology with its A7, A8, and A8X chips.

In September 2018, however, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the damages that Apple had been ordered to pay, ruling that no reasonable juror could have been able to find infringement based on the evidence that was presented in the liability phase of the original 2015 trial.

The decision comes on the first day of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2019 term.

Top Rated Comments

gnasher729 Avatar
72 months ago
Just repeating from the previous round: Apple did something that is reasonably _similar_ to what the university had patented, but _not the same_. Definitely not the same. Not even sometimes the same. And since it's not the same, Apple never infringed on the university's patent, and therefore doesn't have to pay damages. Doing something that is similar to a patented invention is absolutely fine.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
72 months ago

Didn’t Intel settle with WARF over this many years ago? Perhaps @cmaier could chime in on this?

Did they settle because it was easier/cheaper or did they settle because they felt they infringed and would likely lose in court?

Has WARF ever gone after ARM, Samsung or Qualcomm over these patents? If not, why go after Apples ARM compatible processors and not others? I have an idea...
WARF sued Intel and they settled.

Looking at the claims ,which are directed at load/store scheduling, seems to me possible that some ARM chips could infringe and others not. Seems like the scheduling microarchitecture isn't automatically determined by the instruction set architecture - you can do it lots of ways, or none at all. I have no idea what's in ARM's own reference designs though.

The issue is that Apple uses a hashing algorithm for memory load prediction where each entry is a load tag and a prediction. Each tag is a hash of the instruction address. Since it's a hash, the same tag can apply to many different instructions.

There is some claim language in the patent that the courts say require the tag to correspond to a "particular instruction." The courts say that since the tag could correspond to multiple instructions, it doesn't correspond to the "particular" instruction, and hence no infringement. Or something like that - I read the patent very quickly, so I could be missing something.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
72 months ago

Setting the facts of the present case aside, the CAFC does this way too often, and it really bothers me. Whether or not there is infringement and how much is owed are facts, not legal questions, and in jury trials decisions of fact should be left to the jury unless there is some clearly inexplicable injustice occurring. But the CAFC has a pattern of overruling the jury at a much higher rate than is reasonable. It indicates they are perhaps making outcome-driven decisions, rather than fair rulings. There are countless legal articles using pretty inflammatory language about the CAFC, such as accusing the CAFC of being anti-jury or verdict killers.
Um, no.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
72 months ago

Just repeating from the previous round: Apple did something that is reasonably _similar_ to what the university had patented, but _not the same_. Definitely not the same. Not even sometimes the same. And since it's not the same, Apple never infringed on the university's patent, and therefore doesn't have to pay damages. Doing something that is similar to a patented invention is absolutely fine.
Except for the Doctrine of Equivalents.
But yes.


Just goes to show that court judges are just people who can have different opinions
How does it show that? All the judges had the same opinion. They disagreed with the jury.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
realtuner Avatar
72 months ago
Didn’t Intel settle with WARF over this many years ago? Perhaps @cmaier could chime in on this?

Did they settle because it was easier/cheaper or did they settle because they felt they infringed and would likely lose in court?

Has WARF ever gone after ARM, Samsung or Qualcomm over these patents? If not, why go after Apples ARM compatible processors and not others? I have an idea...
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
72 months ago
I suppose I should be less flippant.

Obviously there are facts underpinning any finding of infringement, but whether or not a patent is infringed is a mixed question of law and fact. For example, what the words in the patent claim mean is a question of law, not of fact, and can only be determined by a judge. If a judge says “particular” means “the one” and a jury decides that “the ten” are the same as “particular,” it’s a good idea for a judge to say “nope.”

The CAFC serves a very important purpose of bringing some degree of uniformity to how the patent laws are interpreted. Otherwise, each judge could do things differently, and people would go around forum shopping to get the judge/court they want.

And, in this case, the supreme court seems to have agreed with the CAFC, at least to the extent they didn’t think the CAFC got anything so fundamentally wrong that required the Supreme Court to get involved.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Expected Next Week - Here Are the Release Notes

Friday March 28, 2025 2:01 pm PDT by
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect. There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Magic Mouse Green

What to Expect From the Magic Mouse 3

Saturday March 29, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect. The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design. It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information. Relocated Charging Port While the Magic Mouse switched from...
top stories 2025 03 29

Top Stories: WWDC 2025 Announced, iPhone 17 Pro and iOS 19 Rumors, and More

Saturday March 29, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent. A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

Six Things to Know About Apple's Upcoming Foldable iPhone

Friday March 28, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things. Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
iOS 19 visionOS UI Elements

Apple Codename Provides Clue About iOS 19's Rumored New Design

Sunday March 30, 2025 6:40 am PDT by
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
maxresdefault

Apple Releases iOS 18.4 With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music, New Emoji and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:03 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
ipad pro 2024

Gurman: New iPad Pro and MacBook Pro Models With M5 Chips to Launch Later This Year

Sunday March 30, 2025 6:06 am PDT by
Apple's next-generation iPad Pro models with the M5 chip will "launch this year," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the new iPad Pro models have progressed to an "advanced testing" stage, and he expects mass production of the devices to begin in the second half of this year. If that timeframe is met, the new iPad Pro models could launch...
Facebook Feature

Facebook's New iPhone App Feature Turns the Clock Back to 2007

Thursday March 27, 2025 1:59 pm PDT by
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out. That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook. Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...