Overview

• A three-judge panel threw out both the original $506.2 million verdict and the subsequent $300 million award due to flawed jury instructions that combined multiple claims.
• The court found that asking jurors to decide all five Optis patents in one question breached the unanimity requirement of the Seventh Amendment.
• The panel also held that one asserted patent was too abstract, another lacked the necessary definiteness in its means-plus-function elements, and that evidence of Apple’s Qualcomm settlement was improperly admitted.
• The case will return to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas for a new damages trial under revised jury instructions.
• Separately, Apple is appealing a May UK decision that ordered it to pay $502 million plus interest for infringing Optis’s wireless patents.