Apple has been ordered to pay $23.6 million to a Texas company after a jury found that the iPhone and other devices infringed on a patent for SkyTel pager technology, Bloomberg reports. The patents in question were issued in the 1990s for the SkyTel two-way paging network, and are owned by Mobile Telecommunications Technologies (MTel).
In responding to a claim by MTel that Apple’s Airport, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices were infringing upon the SkyTel technology, a federal jury in Texas ruled that the patents were valid and infringed by Apple, awarding MTel about a tenth of what it had been seeking in damages.
For its part, Apple denied infringing the patents in question, arguing that MTel was trying to take credit for emojis and calendar invitations and that the patents should be deemed invalid as they didn’t cover new innovations even when they were first issued.
MTel claimed that Apple’s devices “rely on foundational technology for the transmission and storing of messages” and that the company should therefore be required to pay royalties — the company was seeking damages of approximately $1 per infringing device. Notably, Samsung is also accused of infringing the same patents, although that case remains pending.
