Apple Infringed On University Patent, Forced To Pay $506 Million

It seems patent infringements are becoming something of a tradition when it comes to Apple. Either it’s being committed against the company or it’s being accused of doing so. Aside from Qualcomm’s claims, the Cupertino firm just got handed a $506 million check for infringing on a patent by the University of Wisconsin. Funnily enough, this is actually the second time that Apple had to pay the University.

To be more specific, Apple actually owes the money to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), Mashable reports. In 2015, the company was also told to pay $234 million for a similar case and the $506 million total is due to the additional $272 million that U.S. District Judge William Conley told the iPhone maker to cough up.

So, what exactly did Apple do to be given such a huge fine? It apparently had something to do with the company using a computer processor technology that the University had the patent to. While the patent did expire on December 2016, Apple was still found guilty of continuing to use it without permission. Hence, why the judge decided to pile on the amount that a jury had already come up with two years ago.

Apple is already set to appeal the ruling by Judge Conley, Reuters reports, but there has been no set date as to when it would be granted. What’s more, Apple has so far declined to comment on the matter.

This case actually goes all the way back to 2014, when WARF sued Apple over the same patent. After that, the University sued the company again in 2015, alleging that some iPhone chips were still in violation of the same patents. The patent itself was gained by Professor Gurindar Sohi and three of the university’s students all the way back in 1998.