Apple was ordered by a US federal jury to pay approximately $308.5 million to Personalized Media Communications LLC (PMC) for infringing on a patent connected with digital rights management, Reuters reported. PMC had initially sued the tech company in 2015, claiming that the company’s iTunes platform infringed on multiple patents. “Cases like this, brought by companies that don’t make or sell any products, stifle innovation and ultimately harm consumers,” Apple said in a statement, as per Reuters. PMC, which is based in Texas, has infringement cases in progress against firms such as Amazon, Google and Netflix per the report.
This is not the first of cases requiring Apple to make payments for infringements.
Attorneys general from 34 states and district attorneys from multiple counties, had in November 2020, unveiled a $113 million settlement against Apple over alleged iPhone “throttling,” where the tech company reputedly slowed down older phones to encourage trade-ins, according to an announcement.
The settlement resolves allegations that Apple provided “misrepresentations” regarding iPhone batteries and allegedly used software that slowed down processing performance to handle “insufficient” battery power in older phones. Critics claim Apple installed the software to slow phones and prompt consumers to buy new ones, but the company maintained it only did so to protect phones from damage due to weak batteries.
