U.S. Appeals Court Tosses $300M Verdict Against Apple in Optis Patent Dispute

In a significant turn in Apple's long-running patent battle with Optis Wireless Technology, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has thrown out a $300 million jury verdict against the tech giant. The court's decision, issued on June 16, 2025, vacates the infringement judgment and sends the case back to the Eastern District of Texas for a new trial, citing a flawed verdict form that deprived Apple of its right to a unanimous jury decision.

The appeal stems from a lawsuit filed by Optis in 2019, alleging that Apple's iPhones, iPads, and other LTE-capable devices infringed five standard-essential patents (SEPs). In a 2021 retrial, a jury awarded Optis $300 million in damages. However, the Federal Circuit found that the verdict form was defective: it combined all five patents into a single infringement question, asking jurors whether Apple had infringed "any" of the asserted claims. This allowed for a non-unanimous verdict on individual patent claims, violating Apple's constitutional rights.

"The problem with the district court's single infringement question is that it deprived Apple of its right to a unanimous verdict on each legal claim against it," the court wrote.


This marks the second time a nine-figure verdict in this case has been overturned. A prior $506.2 million jury award from 2020 was also vacated and sent back for retrial. In its latest ruling, the Federal Circuit also addressed several legal issues to guide future proceedings. It reversed the lower court's determination that two claims in one patent were not directed to an abstract idea, and that another patent did not invoke means-plus-function claiming. The court did affirm the construction of a claim in a third patent.

Additionally, the court found that the district court had abused its discretion by allowing the Apple-Qualcomm settlement agreement into evidence during the damages retrial. The court said the agreement's "probative value… is dubious" and "highly prejudicial to Apple," ordering it excluded from future proceedings.

This latest ruling adds another chapter to the ongoing global legal battle between Apple and Optis, which also includes a separate U.K. court decision ordering Apple to pay $502 million for patent infringement—another judgment Apple plans to appeal.

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