Judge Conley Orders Apple to Pay WARF $506 Million

This is the latest installment in the ongoing patent battle between Apple and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).  Last month, as I reported here, Judge Conley (E.D. Wisconsin) entered an opinion and order that, inter alia, denied WARF's motion for an injunction and instead awarded an ongoing royalty at a rate of $2.74 per unit.  Yesterday Judge Conley entered judgment (available here), which included "(1) damages awarded by the jury; (2) supplemental damages at the rate of $1.61 per infringing unit for accused processors sold through the initial entry of judgment on October 26, 2015; (3) ongoing royalties at the rate of $2.74 per infringing unit for accused processors from October 27, 2015, through expiration of the '752 patent on December 26, 2016; (4) prejudgment interest calculated at the prime rate compounded quarterly through the initial October 26, 2015, judgment; (5) costs as taxed on June 6, 2017; and (6) post-judgment interest at the statutory rate of 0.232% compounded annually through June 30, 2017."  The total comes to $506,084,992.66.  As discussed in Judge Conley's opinion last month (p.33), the ongoing royalty rate is higher than the prejudgment rate the jury awarded, which is consistent with Federal Circuit precedent (but is nevertheless a bad rule, for reasons I've explained previously).  More on the case from this story from Reuters.  Looks like Apple has already filed it notice of appeal.