The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday reportedly asked the U.S. government for an opinion on Apple and Broadcom’s proposed renewed challenge to the validity of Caltech’s patent rights. Previously, the court had already awarded the companies $1.1 billion (currently about 7.447 billion yuan) in damages to Caltech.
The U.S. Supreme Court justices asked the U.S. Attorney General for an opinion on a lower court ruling that barred Apple and Broadcom from arguing patent invalidity at trial.
Caltech has not commented. Apple and Broadcom spokespeople also have not yet responded.
Caltech filed a lawsuit against Apple and Broadcom in 2016 through a Los Angeles federal court, alleging that millions of iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches and other devices with Broadcom Wi-Fi chips infringed on its data transmission patents.
The judge ruled in favor of Caltech, seeking $837.8 million in damages from Apple and $270.2 million from Broadcom. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit challenged the number of damages and remanded the case for a new trial. Rehearing is scheduled for June.
Apple and Broadcom also told the Federal Circuit that they should be allowed to challenge the validity of the patent at trial. But the appeals court upheld the trial court’s decision, barring the companies from challenging it because they should have done so when they applied for a review of the patent by the U.S. Patent Office.
The companies appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court last September. They told the justices that the appeals court misread the law: they argued that the law only prohibits challenges that should have been filed during the examination process, not challenges that should have been filed in the application.
Caltech is also suing Microsoft, Samsung, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, accusing those companies of infringing the same patents, but the court has not yet ruled.
Apple is a significant buyer of Broadcom chips, with the two sides reaching a $15 billion supply agreement in January 2020. Sources said that Apple plans to replace Broadcom chips with its own chip design in 2025.
According to estimates, Broadcom has about 20% of its revenue from Apple.
