Smartflash wins Patent trial against Apple, ordered to pay $532.9 million

Smartflash LLC has won a patent trial against Apple, where a jury ruled that they owe $532.9 million to the small company.

Smartflash, which claimed that Apple infringed three patents, was seeking $852 million in damages, while Apple said it was worth $4.5 million at most. A federal jury in Tyler, Texas, where Smartflash is based, on Tuesday rejected Apple’s arguments that it didn’t use the inventions and that the patents were invalid.

The patents, which Apple supposedly infringed upon, involve data storage, payment systems, and DRM, the main target for the case was iTunes.

Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman stated:

“Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no U.S. presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented,”

“We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system.”

Apple attacked every aspect of Smartflash’s case. It said the patents were invalid and weren’t infringed. It said Smartflash didn’t have complete control of the patents and waited too long to file suit. It also argued that Smartflash’s royalty demands were “excessive and unsupportable.”

Via