Apple has asked a court to overturn a jury verdict awarding more than $5.7 billion in damages in a patent lawsuit over the Taptic Engine, the vibration component used in the iPhone and Apple Watch. 9to5Mac reports that Apple filed a new motion on October 13, 2026.
On September 25, a jury in a federal district court in California found that Apple infringed two patents held by Taction Technology and awarded $5,721,961,750 (about $5.72 billion) in damages. The verdict is extraordinarily large even by the standards of U.S. patent litigation. Apple denies infringement and also argues that the evidence is insufficient to support the damages figure.
What stands out most in this dispute is that two questions are being fought separately: whether the vibration component meets the patents' technical requirements, and how much that technology is worth.
Indeed, before the jury trial, the court accepted the reliability of the vibration testing conducted by Taction, but excluded expert opinions that would have been used to convert the value of the patented technology into a dollar amount.
The massive verdict also involves the investment firm that financed the litigation, which could receive roughly $1.4 billion if the verdict stands as is. However, the firm itself acknowledges that the final award could change substantially.
Measuring vibration, proving patent infringement, and calculating the monetary value of the infringed technology: the differences among these three tasks are central to this case.
A verdict of more than $5.7 billion: Apple contests both infringement and damages
The lawsuit began when Taction Technology sued Apple in April 2021. At issue is whether the Taptic Engine in the iPhone and Apple Watch infringes Taction's haptic-feedback patents.
After roughly five years of litigation, on September 25, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California returned a verdict in favor of Taction.
According to the September 25 jury verdict form (ECF No. 707), the jury decided the following:
| Issue | Jury's decision |
|---|---|
| U.S. Patent No. 10,659,885, claims 17 and 19 | Found infringed by Apple |
| U.S. Patent No. 10,820,117, claim 16 | Found infringed by Apple |
| Willful infringement by Apple | Not found |
| Invalidity of the patents, as argued by Apple | Invalidity not established |
| Damages | $5,721,961,750 |
Importantly, while the jury found patent infringement, it did not find "willful infringement."
U.S. patent law distinguishes between ordinary infringement and willful infringement, such as knowingly and deliberately continuing to infringe.
Section 284 of the U.S. Patent Act governs damages for patent infringement and also allows courts to increase damages up to three times. Willfulness is an important factor in deciding whether to enhance damages.
Because this jury did not find willfulness, the figure of more than $5.7 billion does not result from a punitive enhancement for willful infringement.
The jury also did not accept Apple's argument that the patents are invalid. That does not mean, however, that every legal dispute over the patents has been fully resolved.
Furthermore, the $5,721,961,750 awarded by the jury is not broken down by patent, product, or time period. The verdict form lists total damages as a single figure.
Apple is contesting the verdict, and it was reported that on October 13 it filed a new motion seeking to overturn it.
According to 9to5Mac's report of the filing the same day, Apple argues that Taction failed to present sufficient evidence to support the damages and left the jury to rely on guesswork.
Apple reportedly asks the court to set aside the infringement finding and the damages award and, in the alternative, to order a new trial on infringement, patent validity, and damages.
These, however, are Apple's arguments; the court has not granted the request.
What patents was the Taptic Engine found to infringe?
To understand this case, it helps to grasp the technical relationship between the Taptic Engine and Taction's patents.
The Taptic Engine is the haptic-feedback vibration mechanism Apple uses in products such as the iPhone and Apple Watch.
It produces the light click sensation you feel in your fingertip when using a smartphone screen, as well as the small vibrations of Apple Watch notifications.
In this kind of haptic feedback, it is important not merely to generate vibration but to control its strength, frequency, and duration to convey the intended sensation to the user.
The two Taction patents at issue concern technology that uses electromagnetic force to vibrate a component and to control that vibration appropriately.
Specifically, these two patents are in dispute:
Both patents share a common specification and claim priority to a provisional application filed on September 24, 2014.
The patents describe a mechanism combining a coil, magnets, a vibrating movable part, a structure supporting that part, and a magnetic fluid that damps vibration.
Of particular importance is the magnetic fluid known as ferrofluid.
Ferrofluid is a material in which fine magnetic particles are dispersed in a liquid. It responds to magnetic fields and can be used, for example, to dampen the vibration of mechanical parts.
Taction's patents describe a structure in which ferrofluid contacts the vibrating movable part to damp its motion.
For example, claim 17 of the '885 patent includes, in addition to a coil, multiple magnets, and a mechanism supporting the movable part, a requirement that ferrofluid suppress at least one mechanical resonance in the 40–200 Hz frequency band.
Claim 19 of the same patent further specifies that the coil is an elongated oval with substantially flat sides.
Claim 16 of the '117 patent also includes specific structural requirements, such as ferrofluid damping, the shape of the parts supporting the movable part, and dimensional relationships of the housing.
In other words, these patents do not claim a monopoly over "mechanisms that make a smartphone vibrate" in general.
At issue is whether Apple's products have the specific configurations recited in the claims, such as ferrofluid damping, a coil, magnets, and a support mechanism.
What made that determination especially difficult was the question of under what conditions vibration should be measured.
Apple won in 2023, but the appeals court reversed in 2025
Court rulings leading up to the jury verdict were not consistently in Taction's favor.
In August 2023, the district court found no infringement by Apple and granted summary judgment in Apple's favor.
Summary judgment is a ruling issued without a jury trial when there is no genuine dispute over material facts and the matter can be decided on legal grounds alone.
At that time, the district court construed the patents' vibration-damping requirements narrowly.
Specifically, it limited the mechanism for sufficiently damping the vibration output to mechanical damping, and construed the "Q factor," an indicator of the sharpness of resonance, as needing to be below 1.5.
The Q factor expresses how strongly a vibrating system resonates at a particular frequency. In general, the higher the Q factor, the stronger the resonance at a specific frequency; the lower it is, the more the resonance peak is suppressed.
Taction objected to this claim construction and appealed.
As a result, on August 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the district court's decision and remanded the case.
According to the appeals court opinion (No. 23-2349), the court agreed that the claims require a sufficiently damped vibration output, but held that limiting that damping to mechanical means was an error.
It also rejected the blanket interpretation that the Q factor must be below 1.5.
This ruling matters because it indicated that not only the structure of the mechanical parts themselves but also the product's operation, including control software, can be relevant to the infringement analysis.
However, the appeals court did not find that Apple infringed.
What it decided was that there were problems with the district court's claim construction and its treatment of expert testimony.
Whether the actual Apple products satisfy the patent requirements was left for the district court to consider anew on remand.
Against this background, the September 2026 jury verdict was not simply the result of comparing the two companies' technical arguments.
It came after a long-running legal dispute over how to interpret the scope of the patent rights.
The two sides disagree on how to test vibration
A major point of contention after remand was the test method used to examine the vibration characteristics of Apple's products.
Taction's expert, Dr. James Oliver, examined vibration characteristics using Apple's haptic-feedback control framework, Core Haptics.
The test used an application called HapticSweep.
Dr. Oliver held the vibration input intensity given from the app constant while changing the frequency in steps.
According to an expert report prepared in 2023, a representative iPhone produced a roughly flat vibration output in the 80–230 Hz range.
"Flat" here means that the vibration output does not change significantly as the frequency changes.
Apple's expert, Dr. Michael Zinn, on the other hand, argued that vibration characteristics should be evaluated by a different method.
Dr. Zinn emphasized measuring by applying a sine-wave voltage of constant amplitude directly to the coil terminals of the vibration component.
The differences between the two approaches are summarized below:
| Comparison | Taction's test | Test favored by Apple |
|---|---|---|
| Input signal | Vibration commands via Core Haptics | Voltage applied directly to coil terminals |
| What is held constant | Input intensity given from the app | Amplitude of the sine-wave voltage |
| Main measurement target | Vibration response of the product, including its control functions | Response of the vibration component when voltage is applied directly |
| Point of dispute | Whether the actual product operation yields a sufficiently damped output | Whether the vibration component itself meets the patents' damping requirement |
Both tests measure vibration while varying frequency.
However, the conditions held constant differ.
The test via Core Haptics measures the response of the whole product, including software vibration control. The test applying a constant voltage directly to the coil examines the characteristics of the component itself more directly.
Therefore, even if the two sets of graphs differ, it does not necessarily mean that either measurement is simply wrong.
What matters is which test conditions are appropriate for determining whether the patent requirements are met.
The court generally accepted Taction's test method
In its August 11, 2026 order (ECF No. 545, pp. 26–28), the district court ruled that Taction's expert opinions on vibration testing would, in general, be admitted as evidence.
The court emphasized that Taction's test results could be reproduced by another method.
According to the court documents, a comparison of tests using Dr. Oliver's HapticSweep and a different software, Hapticlabs, confirmed that the same input conditions yielded the same results after analysis.
Based on this, the court found this sufficient to establish the reliability of the testing method under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
There is, however, an important caveat to this ruling.
What the court accepted is that the test method is reliable enough to support admissible expert opinion.
It did not hold that those test results alone proved Apple's patent infringement.
Nor did it admit the testing opinions unconditionally for every iPhone.
For example, for the iPhone 17, the court excluded Dr. Oliver's opinion because the axis of motion of its vibration component differs from that of the other accused products and the necessary additional testing had not been performed.
For the iPhone 17 Pro, by contrast, it allowed the testing opinion.
In this way, the court separately assessed the reliability of the test method and whether the results could be applied to individual products.
In its new motion, Apple also argues that Taction's tests do not correctly evaluate the vibration characteristics described in the patents.
But that is Apple's argument; the August evidentiary ruling has not been automatically overturned.
The court accepted the vibration tests but excluded opinions valuing the patented technology
Alongside the technical issues, the method for calculating damages is a key question in this case.
Even if Apple's products did infringe Taction's patents, that alone does not automatically produce a $5.7 billion award.
Section 284 of the Patent Act provides a mechanism to compensate for infringement, awarding damages of no less than a reasonable royalty.
A reasonable royalty is the patent license fee that would be paid if the patent holder and the infringer had entered into a lawful license agreement.
In calculating that amount, one must consider how much the patent contributes to the value of the entire product.
For example, the iPhone incorporates many technologies, including the display, camera, semiconductors, communications functions, and software.
The Taptic Engine is one part of that, but how much each patent used in the Taptic Engine contributes to the value of the whole product is a separate question.
Therefore, even if infringement is found, the sales of the entire iPhone or the value of the entire Taptic Engine cannot simply be treated as the value of the patents at issue.
This approach of separating the value attributable to the patented technology from the value of the whole product is called "apportionment."
In the August 11 order, this apportionment was a major problem for Taction's expert opinions.
The court's rulings can be summarized as follows:
| Expert opinion | Court's ruling | Main reason |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. James Oliver's vibration-characteristics testing | Generally admitted | Results were reproducible with different software |
| Dr. Oliver's analysis of the patented technology's share of contribution | Excluded | Reliability of the testimony and tests relied on was not sufficiently shown |
| Dr. Patrick Kennedy's reasonable royalty calculation | Excluded | Problems with Dr. Oliver's contribution analysis, on which it was based |
| Apple-side Julie Knox's analysis using Taction's corporate valuation | Excluded | The company-wide valuation was not properly tied to the value of the patents at issue |
This comparison is based on the August 11, 2026 district court order.
The test in which Dr. Oliver measured the vibration characteristics of Apple's products was accepted, but his opinion using those measurements to estimate what percentage of product value the patents account for was excluded.
The court pointed out that the testimony of Apple personnel on which Dr. Oliver relied lacked the information needed to determine which iPhones the explanation concerned.
The comparison involving Corsair products was also problematic because it relied on undisclosed tests and undocumented conversations.
Dr. Patrick Kennedy's reasonable royalty calculation, which assumed Dr. Oliver's contribution analysis, was also excluded because its reliability had not been established.
Meanwhile, the Apple-side expert's analysis using Taction's corporate valuation was also not accepted.
This is because the fact that the company holding the patents has a low overall value does not mean that the value of the individual patents is low.
The court required both sides to present evidence that properly links damages to the value of the patents in dispute, rather than to mere company size or product prices.
In September, supplemental materials were partly allowed
However, the August decision did not finally exclude all of Taction's damages evidence.
In the September 3 district court order (ECF No. 599), the court partly allowed Taction to submit supplemental expert reports.
Specifically, it allowed Taction to fill gaps in the explanation by presenting additional portions of the Apple personnel testimony that Dr. Oliver had previously cited.
On the other hand, it did not allow Taction to conduct new tests and add the results to the analysis, because shortly before trial Apple would not have had sufficient opportunity to examine them.
The court also allowed Dr. Kennedy's supplemental report on reasonable royalties only to the extent it relied on the permitted supplemental portions of Dr. Oliver's report.
In other words, the court gave Taction a limited opportunity to supplement, but did not let it freely add new tests or calculation methods.
What evidence was actually admitted at the jury trial and treated as supporting the damages figure is now a new point of contention.
The Corsair license agreement Apple objects to
In Taction's damages calculation, a license agreement with Corsair, a maker of gaming headsets and other products, played an important role.
Taction sought to calculate a reasonable royalty for Apple's use of the patents at issue by referring to past license agreements.
Apple, however, argues that the amounts in this agreement cannot be directly applied to damages for the infringement at issue.
Apple's motion for judgment as a matter of law filed on September 23 (ECF No. 687) explains the reasons in detail.
According to Apple, the Corsair agreement is not a simple license covering only the two patents in dispute.
The agreement reportedly also included other related patents, provision of technical know-how, and engineering support.
The agreement also covered other patents that are not in dispute in this lawsuit.
Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish what portion of the royalty Corsair pays corresponds to the two patents at issue.
In addition, gaming headsets and the iPhone or Apple Watch differ in use, price, and the value of haptic-feedback functionality.
Even if the Corsair agreement could properly isolate the value of the patents at issue, applying that amount to Apple's products would require further accounting for differences between the products.
Apple argues that Taction did not adequately perform this apportionment of value.
Apple's September 23 filing also states that the jury was not shown a specific royalty rate based on the Corsair agreement and lacked a sufficient basis for calculating damages.
Apple further pointed out that the cost of ferrofluid materials and Taptic Engine hardware does not directly indicate the economic value of the patents at issue.
For example, even if ferrofluid is an inexpensive material, that does not mean an invention that incorporates it into a particular mechanism is of low value.
Conversely, just because a patent is used in an expensive vibration component does not mean the specific patent in that component warrants a high royalty.
What matters is not material cost or product price, but showing how much technical and economic value the patents at issue generate.
Apple argues that because Taction failed to provide that basis, the jury's calculation of damages relies on speculation.
However, this explanation is based on Apple's filings; it does not mean the court has wholly rejected Taction's damages arguments.
What Apple seeks in its October 13 motion
According to 9to5Mac's October 13 report, Apple's new motion again stresses the lack of evidence supporting the damages.
Apple criticized Taction for asking the jury to decide an amount it considered reasonable, rather than presenting a specific royalty.
As a result, Apple argues, the jury awarded an unusually large sum without a sufficient basis for tying the value of the patents to a dollar amount.
Apple also objects to Taction's vibration tests.
According to Apple, Dr. Oliver's tests measured vibration after adjustment by Apple's control software, rather than the characteristics of the vibration component described in the patents.
For this reason, Apple argues that Taction's tests cannot properly verify the technical requirements of the patents at issue.
Apple further contends that if Taction's interpretation were adopted, the scope of the patent claims would become unclear, raising problems with the patents' validity.
In this way, Apple challenges not only the damages but also the infringement finding itself.
Questions also raised about the $5.7 billion figure
The new motion reportedly also raises doubts about the damages figure the jury wrote down.
According to the filing quoted by 9to5Mac, before the verdict was formally announced, the judge reportedly said he was not certain that the number written on the verdict form was the amount the jury really intended.
Even if that remark was made, however, it does not mean the jury miswrote the figure.
In fact, page 5 of the formally filed verdict form bears the handwritten figure "5,721,961,750."
How that figure was calculated, and how the amount on the verdict form should be treated, awaits future judicial determination.
The size of the jury's figure is not in itself grounds for overturning the verdict.
The question is whether there is evidence supporting the amount and whether it was derived by a legally permissible method of calculation.
Courts can change their rulings even after a jury verdict
What Apple seeks is not mere expression of dissatisfaction.
In U.S. federal civil litigation, even after a jury verdict, parties can ask the court to reconsider on legal grounds.
One is a motion for "judgment as a matter of law" under Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
This asks the court to change the outcome by arguing, for instance, that the evidence supporting the verdict is legally insufficient.
A party can also seek a new trial under Rule 59.
Apple's request falls within these post-verdict procedures.
How things develop will therefore depend greatly on whether the court grants Apple's motion.
For example, the court could uphold the infringement finding while deciding that the damages must be retried.
It is also possible that Apple's arguments are rejected and the jury verdict is upheld.
At this point, it is impossible to know which outcome will result.
Litigation funder could receive up to about $1.4 billion
There is another aspect of this patent case worth noting.
An outside investment firm is funding Taction's litigation.
Litigation funding is an arrangement in which a company or investment fund pays litigation costs and receives a portion of the money obtained through a win or settlement.
For the litigants, it makes it easier to cover legal and investigation costs that can be very high. For the funder, there is the possibility of earning returns depending on the outcome, but also the risk of losing the invested capital if the case is lost.
In this case, litigation finance firm Burford Capital issued an official statement after the verdict.
According to the statement it released on September 28, if the award of more than $5.7 billion were paid as is, the amount Burford would be entitled to receive would be about $1.4 billion.
That equals roughly one-quarter of the verdict amount.
However, the full $1.4 billion would not become Burford's own income. According to the company's explanation, the amount would be split roughly evenly between Burford's own account and the investment funds it manages.
The amount actually received will also vary depending on the final court outcome, contract terms, and costs.
Interestingly, Burford itself has taken a cautious view of the verdict becoming final.
In its statement, the company explained that it is not uncommon for verdicts in large patent cases to be altered through post-trial proceedings or appeals.
It further acknowledged that there is no guarantee the verdict amount will be maintained and that the case could settle for a significantly lower sum.
For Burford, the verdict of more than $5.7 billion is not confirmed revenue at this point.
Rather, depending on future court decisions, the amount it ultimately receives could fall significantly or could prove uncollectable.
According to the August 11 district court order, Apple and Taction had agreed not to present evidence or argument about litigation funders or financing at the jury trial.
It therefore cannot be presumed that the presence of outside investors directly influenced the jury's calculation of damages.
The funding of the litigation should be considered a separate matter from the technical value of the patents and the calculation of damages for infringement.
October 16 is the next deadline; the fate of the $5.7 billion verdict is unsettled
In the district court order issued on September 29 (ECF No. 718), the deadline for post-verdict motions was set for October 16.
The order also requires oppositions to each motion to be filed within 21 days of the motion's filing date.
The order also stated that, as of September 29, final judgment had not yet been formally entered.
The reported filing of Apple's new motion on October 13 is part of this process.
Whether Apple's requests will be granted depends on the court's future rulings.
The case has three main points of contention.
First, whether Apple's Taptic Engine meets the technical requirements recited in Taction's patent claims.
The question is how to evaluate, against the patent requirements, the mechanical characteristics of the vibration component and the operation of the whole product, including software control.
Second, there is the question of how far expert tests and analyses are admissible as evidence.
Even if the results of a test can be reproduced by another method, that alone does not prove patent infringement or establish the patents' economic value.
Third, if infringement is found, there is the question of on what basis a reasonable royalty is to be calculated.
How much a particular vibration technology contributes to an actual product, and how much it would be reasonable to pay for a license: without evidence supporting that amount, it becomes difficult to justify a huge damages award.
In this case in particular, it is significant that the court accepted the reliability of the vibration tests while excluding expert opinions calculating the patented technology's contribution and the royalty.
After the later limited supplemental submissions and the jury trial, what evidence was ultimately accepted as supporting the verdict of more than $5.7 billion will be examined anew.
Apple denies infringement itself and argues that the basis for damages is insufficient. The jury, for its part, has already accepted Taction's arguments and awarded massive damages.
Going forward, Taction's response and the district court's rulings will determine whether the jury verdict is upheld, the damages are revisited, or a new trial is needed.
This case shows how a patent on a tiny vibration component in a smartphone can lead to an economic dispute on the scale of billions of dollars.
At the same time, it highlights that in valuing patented technology, technical evidence about how a product operates must be clearly linked to evidence of how much economic value the technology generated.
How this extraordinary verdict of more than $5.7 billion ultimately ends will be closely watched, not only by Apple and Taction but also as a case bearing on how U.S. patent litigation values individual patents embedded in complex products.