Ondrej Holzman The era of pagers is long gone, but thanks to these devices, Apple now has to pay almost 24 million crowns to Mobile Telecommunications Technologies. According to the latest court decision, his devices infringed several patents invented in the 90s.
After a six-hour hearing, the jury ruled that Apple was using five patents without permission that were used in pagers in the 90s, which were small personal devices that only accepted short text or number messages.
Texas-based MTel last year accused Apple of a total of six infringements against its patents covering two-way data exchange. The California-based iPhone maker was supposed to use AirPort Wi-Fi patents in its devices, and MTel demanded $237,2 million (or roughly $1 per device) in damages.
In the end, the court did indeed decide that Apple was using the patents without permission, but awarded MTel a mere fraction of the requested amount - $23,6 million to be exact. Nevertheless, the head of United Wireles, under which MTel now falls, applauded the verdict, because at least it gave the Texas company some much-deserved credit.
"The people working at SkyTel at the time (the network for which MTel was developing - editor's note) were significantly ahead of their time," said Andrew Fitton. "This is a recognition of all their work."
This was not the first time Apple had been accused of infringing pager patents. However, a month ago in California, he won a similar lawsuit against a Honolulu company that was seeking $94 million. Even in the case with MTel, Apple did not admit fault, allegedly did not infringe the patents and even argued that they were invalid because they did not cover any new innovations at the time they were issued.
