A federal jury in San Diego has ordered Apple to pay more than $5.7 billion to a small haptics company called Taction Technology, finding that the Taptic Engine built into iPhones and Apple Watches infringes two of the startup's patents. Legal trackers, including Law360, described the award as the largest patent-infringement verdict in U.S. history.
The verdict, delivered late last week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, centers on U.S. Patent Nos. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117, which cover vibration-based tactile transducer technology — the engineering that lets a phone or watch feel like it is responding to a tap or swipe. Jurors found Apple had infringed two claims in one patent and one claim in the other, but concluded the infringement was not willful, a distinction that would otherwise have exposed Apple to triple damages.
A Six-Year Fight Over the Buzz in Your Wrist
Taction, a small San Diego-based firm, sued Apple in 2021, arguing that the company had reverse-engineered its patented technology from a pair of Kannon gaming headsets rather than licensing it properly. The case took more than five years to reach trial; proceedings began September 14, and the seven-member jury spent two days deliberating before returning its verdict in Taction's favor on Friday.
The suit was financed in part by investment vehicles tied to Burford Capital, one of the world's largest litigation funders, according to Bloomberg Law, which reported that funding entities called Gronostaj Investments and Kenosha Investments backed the litigation in exchange for a share of any damages. That arrangement is likely to draw further scrutiny of the growing business of third-party litigation funding in patent disputes, where outside investors bankroll lawsuits against deep-pocketed defendants.
Apple's Taptic Engine has shipped in nearly every iPhone and Apple Watch since 2015, providing the subtle vibrations used for notifications, keyboard feedback and the Watch's tap-on-the-wrist alerts. Because the technology is embedded across essentially the company's entire mobile lineup, the case drew closer attention than most patent disputes, which typically involve a single feature or product line.
Apple Vows to Appeal
Apple said it would challenge the verdict. "While we thank the jury for their consideration, we strongly disagree with today's verdict and the damages awarded, which are entirely unsupported by the facts," the company said in a statement reported by CNBC. "Apple's Taptic Engine is fundamentally different from Taction's technology, which Taction's own testing of Apple's products confirmed during trial. Apple does not use Taction's technology, and we will appeal."
Taction's legal team, led by Quinn Emanuel partners Lance Yang and Tigran Guledjian, welcomed the outcome after years of litigation.
Taction waited five and a half years for this case to get to trial, so it was a long time coming.
Tigran Guledjian, attorney for Taction Technology
Yang added that the firm was happy the jury "found for Taction and vindicated its patent rights," a sentiment echoed across coverage of the verdict, including by AppleInsider, which flagged the size of the award relative to past patent judgments against the company.
Apple has faced sizable patent verdicts before, but none on this scale. A jury awarded Masimo $634 million last year over Apple Watch pulse-oximetry patents, and VirnetX won a $502.8 million verdict in 2020 over FaceTime and iMessage security patents, though the Federal Circuit later undermined that judgment after invalidating two of the underlying patents. Apple's own $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung in 2012 was eventually settled for roughly half that amount. Judges and appellate courts have a long history of trimming jury awards in patent cases, and legal analysts have already begun questioning whether Friday's number will survive intact.
An appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles patent cases exclusively, is expected to take at least a year and could see the damages figure reduced, thrown out, or sent back for a new trial. Until then, the $5.7 billion verdict stands as a reminder that Apple's simplest-seeming features — the buzz of a notification — can carry outsized legal risk when the underlying engineering is contested in court.
