(Reuters) – A federal jury in Texas said Apple Inc must pay approximately $ 308.5 million to Personalized Media Communications LLC (PMC) for patent infringement related to digital rights management.
The judges did not order Apple late Friday to pay an ongoing royalty to PMC, which is generally based on the number of sales of a product or service.
PMC, a licensing company, originally sued Apple in 2015 for the technology giant’s iTunes service violating seven of its patents.
Apple successfully appealed PMC’s case to the US patent office, but an appeals court in March last year reversed that decision, paving the way for the lawsuit.
The iPhone maker did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment, but told Bloomberg it was disappointed with the ruling and would appeal.
“Cases like these, led by companies that don’t make or sell products, hinder innovation and ultimately harm consumers,” Bloomberg said.
Sugarland, Texas-based PMC has filed infringement lawsuits against companies such as Netflix Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Amazon.com Inc.
The case is Personalized Media v. Apple Inc.
Reporting by Derek Francis and Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Kim Coghill