Posted in: iOS

Apple slapped with a $23.6 million fine for infringing patents related to pager technology.

The case stems from a lawsuit brought by Mobile Telecommunications Technologies, which sued Apple last year claiming that several of the its Wi-Fi-enabled products, including smartphones, tablets, and more, offering services like iMessage, emojis, and calendar invitations, violated a total of six patents issued to the company in mid-to-late 1990’s.

An eight-member jury in District Court for the Eastern District of Texas concluded that Apple did infringe on five of the six patents in question, while agreeing with the Cupertino-based company’s argument that emojis do not infringe on the Texas-based company’s patents.

“Apple is refusing to acknowledge the contributions of others”, said MTel’s lawyer Deron Dacus. “This case is about fairness”. The company initially sought $237.2 million in damages, or around $1 per device.

Apple had argued that there was no question of infringement as the patents didn’t cover any innovations at the time of issuance. However, the iPhone maker was ready to pay 1 million “at the most”.

The verdict comes nearly a month after Apple defeated a similar lawsuit brought by a Honolulu company.

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