A court ruling stipulating that Apple would have to pay $625.5 million in patent damages has been reversed after the Cupertino-based company was found not to have infringed patents owned by Mirror Worlds LLC that focused on Apple’s Spotlight, Time Machine and Cover Flow features.
In October, a jury said Apple was infringing three patents over how media and documents were displayed on a computer screen, awarding damages of $208.5 million for each patent.Bloomberg reportsthat Apple immediately appealed the ruling, challenging whether the patents were valid, whether they had been infringed and stating that the damage payments were too high.
Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis agreed with the computing giant, writing:
“Mirror Worlds may have painted an appealing picture for the jury, but it failed to lay a solid foundation sufficient to support important elements it was required to establish under the law.”
Davis also said that “the evidentiary record is insufficient to support the jury’s damage awards” even after the infringement finding had been upheld.
Despite huge revenues in the past year, $625.5 million is a massive amount, even for Apple. The company will be glad to have weathered this patent storm, but it is stillengaged in disputesin various courts across the U.S and Europe.
Story byMatt Brian
Matt is the former News Editor for The Next Web. You can follow him on Twitter, subscribe to his updates on Facebook and catch up with him(show all)Matt is the former News Editor for The Next Web. You can follow him onTwitter, subscribe to his updates onFacebookand catch up with him onGoogle+.
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