Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On the morning of January 18, Beijing time, it was reported that the US Supreme Court sought advice from the US government on Tuesday on Apple and Broadcom's plan to re-challenge the validity of the California Institute of Technology patent. Earlier, the court had ordered the two companies to pay $1.1 billion (currently about 7.447 billion yuan) to the California Institute of Technology.

Us Supreme Court justices have asked the US attorney general to comment on a lower court decision banning Apple and Broadcom from arguing that patents are invalid in trials.

Caltech could not be reached for comment. Spokesmen for Apple and Broadcom have yet to respond.

Caltech filed a lawsuit against Apple and Broadcom through federal court in Los Angeles in 2016, alleging that millions of iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch and other devices using Broadcom Wi-Fi chips infringed their data transmission patents.

The judge ruled in favor of the California Institute of Technology, demanding $837.8 million in damages from Apple and $270.2 million from Broadcom. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit challenged the amount of compensation and sent the case back for retrial. It is reiterated that the trial will be held in June.

Apple and Broadcom also told the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals that they should be allowed to challenge the validity of the patent in the trial. But the appellate court upheld the court of first instance's decision to prohibit the two companies from challenging it because they should have challenged it when applying for patent examination by the US Patent Office.

The two companies appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court last September. They told the justices that the Court of Appeal misread the law: they believed that the law only prohibited challenges that should have been raised during the review process, not those that should have been raised in the application.

Caltech also sued Microsoft, Samsung, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, accusing them of infringing the same patents, but the court has yet to rule.

Apple is an important buyer of Broadcom chips, with a supply agreement of $15 billion in January 2020. It is reported that Apple plans to replace Broadcom chips with self-designed chips in 2025.

It is estimated that about 20% of Broadcom's revenue comes from Apple.

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