Apple infringed University of Wisconsin patent,…

Two India-born engineers are part of a team that won a big case against Apple Inc.in the U.S. this week.

Apple on Wednesday stands on the brink of paying $400 million minimum in damages to the University of Wisconsin-Madison after a federal jury found the tech giant guilty of infringing one of the university’s patents.

There’s also the principle of the thing. Apple Inc., in its defense said in the court that the patent was invalid and that there was no infringement. The technology invented by UW-Madison improves the performance and power-efficiency of CPUs.

WARF sued Apple in January 2014 alleging infringement of its 1998 patent for improving processor efficiency. WARF’s website claims it manages an endowment made up of “licensing and investment revenues” that totals over $2.5 billion dollars.

As the University of Wisconsin’s non-profit patent management body, WARF patents and licenses inventions developed at the institution, with proceeds gained put toward future research projects.

The university has sought around $862.4 million in damages, but the jury has yet to rule on the sum to be awarded. The twists and turns of the worldwide legal battle include a ruling in the United Kingdom that Apple must post a public apology to Samsung for its claims.

“WARF did prevail on liability but evidence regarding damages has yet to be presented”, said a WARF spokeswoman.

The jury was considering whether Apple’s A7, A8 and A8X processors, found in the iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and iPad Mini with Retina display.

“Indeed, Dr. (Gurindar) Sohi, the leader of the lab that developed the ‘752 patent, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering based on his work in the field of computer architecture”, they added. WARF claims that Apple is using its patent in Apple’s latest A9 SoC (system-on-a-chip), said Computerworld. If you’re an Apple user, however, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve been using relying on a piece of WARF technology for a while now.