Apple must pay $5.7 billion for vibration patents in iPhones
A small San Diego company beat Apple before a jury after more than five years of litigation. According to Reuters, it is the largest patent damages award in U.S. history. The company received money for the case from outside investors.
A jury in federal court in San Diego ruled on Friday, 25 September, that Apple had infringed two patents held by Taction Technology. The damages amount to $5,721,961,750, or about 20.5 billion zlotys. According to Reuters, this is the largest such amount in the history of U.S. patent cases. Apple says it will appeal.
The dispute concerns haptics, the technology that lets a user feel a physical response from a device, for example a tap after pressing a button. In Apple devices, this is handled by the Taptic Engine. Apple introduced it in 2014 in the Apple Watch, and later also in iPhones. According to Taction, the mechanism uses solutions from patents No. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117 without a license. The patents concern transducers that produce low-frequency vibrations perceptible to the touch.
Taction sued Apple in April 2021. In 2023, a judge dismissed the lawsuit, but an appeals court later reinstated the case for reconsideration. The jury did not find the infringement to be willful. However, it rejected Apple’s arguments that the disputed patents are invalid.
Apple does not use Taction’s technology and we will appeal.
Taction attorney Lance Yang of Quinn Emanuel told CNBC that the verdict confirms the company’s patent rights. He added that it had waited five and a half years for the trial.
During the proceedings, it was disclosed that Taction received funding for the case from Gronostaj Investments and Kenosha Investments. In another proceeding, Kenosha was identified as an indirect subsidiary of Burford Capital. That is a fund that finances other parties’ litigation in exchange for a share of the damages.
Such judgments do not always stand. In March 2026, an appeals court overturned damages of about $16.1 billion awarded against Argentina in the YPF case, which was also financed by Burford. The jury verdict in the Apple case is not final.
For smaller companies with their own patents, this is an example that a long-running dispute with a large corporation can be pursued with money from an outside investor who, in return, expects a share of the damages.