Apple fights record $5.7bn patent infringement damages over haptic feedback

Photo by Kristiane Wentzel on Unsplash

Apple has asked a US federal judge to overturn the $5.7bn damages award it faces after a California jury found it guilty of infringing two patents covering haptic feedback technology allegedly used in Apple’s iPhones and Apple Watches.

If the jury award is allowed to stand, then it will be the biggest monetary win in a US patent lawsuit ever.

The claimant, audio tech company Taction Technology, was granted the two patents on improvements in haptic feedback (systems that mean the device will respond to tapping or movement) in 2020; in 2021, it went to court claiming that upgrades to Apple’s devices infringed those patents.

A San Diego judge had originally ruled that Apple had not infringed Taction’s patent; but Taction appealed and a US Federal Court said the case had to go to a jury trial, which concluded at the end of September, with the record damages.

The figure has yet to be approved by the court, and both sides are trying to get it changed. Taction has filed a new law suit asking for more money for interest, for Apple’s alleged use of its technology in devices not covered by the original claim, and for future royalty payments.

Apple, meanwhile, has asked for the award to be set aside, or for a new trial. Apple’s main argument, as reported in US website Lawyer Monthly,  is “that Taction failed to establish a reliable basis for calculating damages and that the jury lacked sufficient evidence to support a reasonable royalty of $5.7 billion [and] that Taction lacked admissible expert testimony capable of supporting the scale of the royalty award ultimately returned by the jury.”

Apple appears to have abandoned a key part of its legal strategy from earlier court proceedings, in which it attacked the source of the funding for Taction’s legal action.

Significantly, however, legal case finance specialists Burford Capital, felt it necessary to issue a statement on the matter at the end of September 2026.

In that statement, Burford said:

“A jury in a case in which Burford has a financial entitlement awarded $5.7 billion in damages to the plaintiff. That amount is likely to be altered in post-trial and/or appellate proceedings, but if the verdict amount were paid, as is, Burford's entitlement would be $1.4 billion.”

The statement cautions that “it is important to view the verdict through the lens of the patent litigation process. This includes post-trial proceedings that have yet to occur (including a motion by Apple for judgment as a matter of law—in other words, asking the trial court to set aside the jury's verdict) and significant appellate scrutiny of large verdicts by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Indeed, very few large patent verdicts survive the post-verdict process intact, and that process will unfold over a considerable period of time. The issuance of the jury verdict does not represent a final judgment or cash proceeds received by Burford.”

Burford Capital offers services including litigation finance and risk management, asset recovery and other legal finance and advisory activities. It is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. It is likely that the statement in this case - unusual for Burford - was because of concerns over share-price movements.

US legal experts have pointed out that litigation funding, as in this case, can allow a small company to take on one of the world’s biggest over a sustained campaign last years. Usually, in patent cases like this, the deeper pockets win.

As a comment piece from US law firm Miller Nash puts it:

“Taction litigated for five years, through an adverse summary judgment ruling and a reversal at the Federal Circuit, with financing from Kenosha Investments LP and Gronostaj Investments LLC — funds affiliated with Burford Capital. Arrangements of this kind reduce the resource asymmetry that once made attrition an effective defense for large companies. That kind of financing is also drawing new scrutiny: the U.S. International Trade Commission proposed a rule in April 2026 that would require disclosure of third-party litigation funding in Section 337 investigations, and similar disclosure mandates are being pushed in Congress and considered in the federal courts' own rulemaking process. It remains to be seen whether any such changes will have much effect on infringement litigation.”

One reason that US regulators and lawmakers are examining litigation funding is because there have been suggestions that some anonymous funders have been backed by “hostile foreign agents” who expect to get access to details of patented technology.

Indeed, at the start of this year, US Senator Chuck Grassley introduced the Litigation Funding Transparency Act of 2026, as reported on US site Inside Political Law:

“The legislation requires parties to disclose the identity of any third‑party funder involved in a covered civil action. It also requires parties to state whether the funder is a foreign state, a foreign person, a sovereign wealth fund, or a commercial enterprise that is owned or controlled by a foreign entity. Parties must provide copies of any funding agreements to the relevant federal court and to all other named parties. These disclosures must also be transmitted to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.”

Furthermore, the legislation “limits the ability of funders to access protected discovery materials unless they receive explicit authorization from the court.”

The justification for introducing the Act was “the national security considerations associated with foreign participation in U.S. legal proceedings.”