2020 has started off with a bang as a jury in the Central District of California returned a verdict finding for CalTech on five counts of infringement against both Apple and Broadcom. The suit centered around Broadcom Wi-Fi components that had been used in a variety of products resulting in awards of $270,241,171 from Broadcom and $837,801,178 from Apple.
Originally filed in 2016, CalTech asserted claims from four patents (U.S. Patent No. 7,116,710, U.S. Patent No. 7,421,032, U.S. Patent No. 7,916,781, and U.S. Patent No. 8,284,833). Each of the four is titled “Serial Concatenation of Interleaved Convolutional Codes Forming Turbo-Like Codes” and covers Irregular repeat and accumulate codes or ‘IRA codes’ which improve transmission rates and is connected with the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard.
CalTech asserted these patents against Broadcom’s Wi-Fi components, including the exemplary BCM4350 “5G WiFi 802.11ac Client”. These components were found to be used in iPhones, iPads, iPods, Apple Watches, Mac computers, HomePod smart speakers, and the discontinued AirPort wireless routers. Based on their use of the IRA codes, the jury found Apple and Broadcom owed reasonable royalties for these products dating back to 2010, bringing the total damages to $1.1 Billion.
Category: Firm News