Apple and Broadcom have reached an agreement with the California Institute of Technology, a private U.S. university based in the city of Pasadena, California, that ends a legal dispute that began in 2016 after a patent infringement lawsuit was filed.
Caltech’s allegations concerned the use of its patented technology in Wi-Fi chips manufactured by Broadcom and used by Apple in iPhone, iPad, Mac, iMac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, HomePod and AirPort routers, now out of production for years.
The patents in question, granted between 2006 and 2012, relate to IRA/LDPC codes that use simplified encoding and decoding circuits to improve data transmission speeds and performance. The technologies are implemented in both 802.11n and 802.11ac Wi-Fi standards.
A ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2020 found Apple and Broadcom guilty and fined the Cupertino company $838 million and $270.2 million on the U.S. chip and semiconductor maker.
The fine was quantified based on a hypothetical existing licensing agreement between the two companies and Caltech that provided for the payment of about $ 1.40 for each Apple device and 0.26 cents for each of Broadcom.
Apple had tried to counter this position by stating that it uses traditional Wi-Fi chips supplied by Broadcom and that it is not responsible for developing encoding and decryption solutions that could infringe Caltech’s intellectual property.
Apple then filed a first appeal against the ruling which was rejected. Following a further appeal last year, the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling and ordered a new trial for damages, finding the amount to be “legally unsustainable.” The new trial, in order to re-evaluate the total amount, had been set for last June but a month before an indefinite postponement had arrived.
Rather than face a new trial, however, the two companies had told the court of their intentions to try to reach an agreement with Caltech. According to Reuters, this agreement would have come even if the terms were not disclosed. Caltech, however, seems to have decided to withdraw the lawsuit against Apple and Broadcom “with prejudice”, thus preventing it from filing a new appeal in the future.
The California Institute of Technology also recently settled a related lawsuit against Samsung and sued Microsoft, Dell and HP for similar matters.
