Apple ordered to pay $532.9m in iTunes patent case

A federal jury in Texas has ordered Apple to pay $US532.9 million in damages for infringing three patents owned by Texas-based licensing firm Smartflash LLC.

The court found that Smartflash'sinventions were used by Apple for its payment and data storage systems for songs, games and videos.

Smartflash who filed the lawsuit in 2013, claimed Apple used six of its patents (US8336772,US8118221,US7334720,US8033458,US7942317andUS8061598) for technology relating to the iTunes App store and its iAd advertising platform,ideas it says Apple took from its founderPatrick Racz, who presented the technology to Augustin Farrugia among others in 2000; Farrugia is a current senior director at Apple.

Smartflash sought $US852m in damages and wanted a percentage of sales of all Apple devices used to access iTunes, but Apple tried to have the case thrown out of court earlier this month arguing that the patents were worth no more that $US4.5m.

Speaking to Bloomberg, an Apple spokesperson said: “Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no US 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 Inc, which reports revenue of approximately $US25bn a month, said it will appeal the ruling.

In 2012 Apple appealed a ruling handed down by a Texas jury which ordered it to pay$368m in damages topatent licensing company VirnetX. The appeal saw a court throw out the ruling.

In August last year, Apple agreed to end its three-year dispute with Samsung to end all patent lawsuits between each other outside of the US. The series of lawsuits began in April 2011 when Apple accused Samsung of copying the iPhone. Samsung responded by charging Apple of stealing its mobile technology.