Last week, a Texas jury decided that Apple infringed a digital media decryption patent belonging to Personalized Media Communications and ordered they pay $308.5 million in damages.
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The verdict is the conclusion of a five-day trial in Marshall, Texas, before U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap. The jury awarded the hundreds of millions in damages as a running royalty.
PMC originally filed suit in 2015, alleging Apple infringed seven of its patents. The infringement Apple will pay for, is related to their FairPlay digital rights management technology. FairPlay controls access to encrypted digital content and software, but PMC alleges it infringes a patent initially developed to inhibit piracy of TV content delivered over a cable or satellite network. The patent was filed and issued in 2012.
The complaint alleged infringement by several Apple products. It noted that iPhones, iPads, and Macs, all use FairPlay to decrypt content like movies, music and apps.
Apple challenged PMC’s patent at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which found several claims invalid as anticipated and obvious. However, the Federal Circuit partially reversed that decision in March of 2020, finding that the board used an incorrect claim construction — an action reviving the PMC’s claims.
In district court, Apple argued that PMC’s patent is invalid for claiming only an abstract idea. Judge Gilstrap swiftly denied that motion on March 12.
“We thank the jury for their time but are disappointed with the verdict and plan to appeal,” Apple said in a statement. “Cases like this, brought by companies that don’t make or sell any products, stifle innovation and ultimately harm consumers.”
PMC owns over 100 patents, all of which stem from inventions founder John Harvey Harvey developed in the 1980s, and has licensed them to companies including Samsung, Sony and Cisco, according to their website.
Last November, a suit by PMC against Google over different digital rights management patents went to trial in Marshall, however the jury cleared Google of infringement and rejected PMC’s bid for damages.
The Sugarland, Texas-based PMC has infringement cases pending against companies including Netflix, Google and Amazon.
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