Biden Administration urges Supreme Court to reject Apple’s appeal in patent case

The Biden administration urges the US Supreme Court to reject Apple and Broadcom’s appeal in a patent infringement case filed by Caltech. The solicitor general argues that the companies can only challenge the validity of Caltech’s patents in court if they did not raise the issue at the US Patent Office.

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The Biden administration has requested the US Supreme Court to decline an appeal made by Apple and Broadcom in a patent infringement case brought against them by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

The US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, argued that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made the correct decision when it ruled that Apple and Broadcom could not dispute the validity of Caltech’s patents in court because they had not raised those arguments at the US Patent Office. Caltech filed a lawsuit against Apple and Broadcom in 2016, alleging that their devices using Broadcom Wi-Fi chips infringed upon its data-transmission patents. In 2020, a jury ordered Apple to pay Caltech $837.8 million and Broadcom to pay $270.2 million.

However, the Federal Circuit later sent the case back for a new trial on damages. Apple and Broadcom argued that they should have been allowed to challenge the patents’ validity during the trial, but the appeals court upheld the decision to prevent such arguments. The Supreme Court has yet to decide whether it will hear the case.