A federal jury in San Diego has ordered Apple to pay more than $5.7 billion to Taction Technology after finding the company infringed two patents covering the haptic-feedback technology used in the iPhone and Apple Watch's "Taptic Engine." It is being described by legal trackers as the largest patent infringement verdict in U.S. history, surpassing a roughly $3 billion award against Intel in a separate case.

Taction, a small patent-licensing company, first sued Apple in 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, arguing that Apple's vibration-based tactile transducer technology relied on Taction's own inventions — U.S. Patent Nos. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117 — without a license. A judge initially threw the case out on summary judgment in Apple's favor, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revived it, sending the dispute to trial.

Inside the Verdict

The trial began September 14, and after two days of deliberation, the seven-person jury returned its verdict Friday afternoon, siding with Taction on all three claims at issue and rejecting Apple's argument that the patents were invalid. Jurors did not find that Apple's infringement was willful, a distinction that can affect whether damages are enhanced.

Apple said in a statement it plans to appeal the verdict, maintaining that its Taptic Engine technology is meaningfully different from what Taction patented and that it "does not use Taction's technology." An appeal could take months or years to resolve and could ultimately reduce or eliminate the award.

The haptic feedback at issue — the subtle buzz a phone or watch gives when you tap an app icon, get a notification, or use certain keyboard functions — has been a marquee feature of Apple's hardware since the Taptic Engine debuted in the Apple Watch and later iPhones. The size of the verdict reflects how central that feature has become across hundreds of millions of devices sold since the patents were filed.