A court in Texas has ruled against Apple after it was sued by the company Optis for using wireless technology in iPhones and other products to which it claimed to own the rights. Apple must now pay $300m (roughly £216m) in royalties to the company, Yahoo Finance reports.
In some ways this is an improvement for Apple. The $300m figure was arrived at by the jury in a retrial; a jury last year awarded Optis $506.2m. Judge Rodney Gilstrap ordered a retrial so that the jury could consider whether the royalties met the requirement that standard-essential patents be licensed on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) terms.
Yet, unsurprisingly, Apple is not happy with the ruling. “We thank the jury for their time but are disappointed by the verdict and plan to appeal,” the company said in a statement. “Optis makes no products and its sole business is to sue companies using patents they accumulate. We will continue to defend against their attempts to extract unreasonable payments for patents they acquire.”
Optis has other claims underway; Yahoo Finance says the latest case is part of a larger “effort by Optis to collect as much as $7bn from the iPhone maker”. In July Apple hinted that it might leave the UK market following another court decision involving Optis.
This article originally appeared on Macworld Sweden. Translation and additional reporting by David Price.