A couple of years ago, Apple was facing a lawsuit filed against them by the University of Wisconsin, in which the university alleged that Apple had infringed upon a patent of theirs. The jury in the case ruled against Apple and ordered the Cupertino company to pay $234 million in damages.
The original amount was actually set at $862 million, but the judge at that time slashed it to $234 million. Unfortunately it seems that for Apple, $234 million wasn’t quite enough because in a report from Reuters (via 9to5Mac), a US judge has since ordered Apple to pay $506 million in damages instead, making it more than double what the jury had initially arrived upon.
According to US District Judge William Conley, this is because he feels that Apple owes the university additional damages plus interest as Apple had continued to infringe upon the patent until its expiry, which was in December 2016. While Apple is pretty loaded in terms of cash, $506 million is definitely no small figure to be sneezed at.
Unsurprisingly Apple is currently looking to appeal Conley’s ruling, but so far they have yet to publicly comment on it. Whether or not they will be successful remains to be seen, or whether or not they might end up settling with the university for a different amount.