Tag: WARF

Indian Engineers Part of the WARF Team Which Sued Apple and Won

The recent lawsuit between Apple and Wisconsin Alumnae Research Foundation (WARF) ended in a penalty of $234 million for Apple. Wisconsin University had sued the tech-giant over the use of patented chips in iPhones and iPads. You can find the whole story here.

The Wisconsin University team which sued Apple has two Indian engineers as part of it. Professor Gurindar Sohi and Terani Vijaykumar are members of the group which pursued legal action against Apple for the infringement of a patent they had developed.

It was ruled out by a jury court on Tuesday, that Apple had used technology in the processors of its devices which had originally been developed by Professor Sohi and Vijaykumar and two others. While WARF had asked for a penalty as high as about $862 million, it was brought down to $234 million.

Both Indian-origin professors are pass-outs from the Birla Institution of Technology and Science in Pilani, Rajasthan and currently teach at the University of Wisconsin Madison and Purdue University in Indiana, respectively. Mr. Sohi is a professor of computer sciences while Mr. Vijaykumar teaches electrical and computer engineering.

“This work has been recognized as a major milestone in the field of computer microprocessor architecture/design,” said Sohi.

The legal case against Apple had begun in April last year. Another such case has happened last month where WARF sued the company once again over patent infringement. The latter case is yet to reach a conclusion.

October 19, 2015
Apple To Pay $234 Million For Patent Infringement

A US jury has passed its verdict and it’s definitely not going to please Apple. The tech giant has been ordered to pay Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) a sum of over $234 million as penalty for patent infringement. WARF is in-charge of all the patent licensing of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The jury had previously reached a decision that Apple had used a patented microchip technology in its iPads and iPhones to which Apple had appealed. After about three hours of deliberation, the amount was set at over a hundred million dollars less than what the University had demanded of Apple. We did a story on this lawsuit which you can read here.

Though Apple is at least free of one lawsuit, more legal trouble awaits the company courtesy of WARF again which is suing the company on the same lines for using patented technology in its latest iPhones -6s and 6s Plus. However, legal trouble is not a territory unknown to Apple which has been waging copyright, infringement and patent related battles with other tech giants as well, Samsung being one of them. Such penalties are not likely to be more than a puny amount for a company which reported its annual revenue for 2014 to be around $182 billion.

October 17, 2015
Legal Trouble For Apple, Company Could Face $862 Million Penalty

The tech giant has found itself at the centre of legal trouble with a US jury. It has been ruled out that Apple is using technology patented by the University of Wisconsin. The patent in question involves the chips used in iPhone, iPad Mini, and iPad Air.

Apple was sued last year in April by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and now it may have to pay a fine of almost a billion USD. WARF claims that the A7, A8, and A8X processors used in the iPhone 5S, 6, and 6 Plus were developed from technology that had already been patented by the University in 1998.

If during the course of the legal proceedings, it is discovered that Apple used the technology in its devices while having knowledge of the patent, the fine amount may go up.Irrespective of whether or not Apple has to pay this ridiculously huge fine, there is some more trouble in store for the company. Last month, WARF sued Apple for the technology used in its newest iPhones and iPad Pro. WARF has had a track record of suing tech companies in the past, including a law suit with Intel in 2008 which lasted for almost a year.

October 14, 2015