Supreme Court Asks U.S. Government to Weigh In on Apple Patent Dispute

The Solicitor General’s office represents the federal government before the high court. If the office encourages the Supreme Court to hear a case, the justices often adopt that recommendation.

Representatives of Apple, Broadcom and Caltech didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Apple and Broadcom want the Supreme Court to review a February 2022 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, an intermediate appeals court that hears patent appeals.

In that decision, the Federal Circuit mostly upheld a jury’s finding that Apple and Broadcom used patented Caltech technology without authorization. The court vacated a $1.1 billion damages award, however, setting the stage for a new trial focused on how much Apple and Broadcom should pay.

In a September 2022 petition to the high court, Apple and Broadcom argued they were improperly blocked from raising key arguments that the Caltech patents were invalid and shouldn’t have been awarded in the first place.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Caltech researchers at the university obtained patents on technology that improves wireless data transmission. The patents were assigned to the university, which in 2016 filed a lawsuit alleging that Broadcom chips used in Apple smartphones and tablets infringe the patents.

A jury in Los Angeles in 2020 returned a verdict that the patents were valid and infringed by Apple and Broadcom. The jury awarded Caltech $837.8 million from Apple and $270.2 million from Broadcom. It ranked as one of the largest verdicts ever in a patent case.

Write to Jan Wolfe at [email protected]