Apple's record $5.7 billion Taptic Engine verdict returns to the judge who dismissed the case in 2023

Apple's defense on the merits is that the Taptic Engine works differently from Taction's patented designs ^[16]. In a statement to Bloomberg Law, reported by CNBC, the company said it "does not use Taction's technology" ^[6]. Taction's complaint accused Apple of "capitalizing on Taction's innovation and success" ^[15]. The suit has been in court since 2021 ^[7].

Cryptopolitan, which calls the award the largest patent verdict in U.S. history ^[2], argues that Apple's appeal record means the check may never clear ^[17]. The Federal Circuit erased a roughly $500 million verdict for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation in 2018, ruling jurors had no reasonable basis to find infringement ^[9]. Two years earlier, a Texas judge threw out a $625.6 million VirnetX verdict over FaceTime and iMessage patents and ordered new trials ^[10]. The Federal Circuit also canceled a $300 million Optis award, sending it to a third trial ^[11], and wiped out a $1.1 billion Caltech verdict on a faulty damages theory ^[12]. Those four came to about $2.5 billion, less than half of what one San Diego jury just awarded ^[2]. The list covers reversals only, and it does not say how many verdicts against Apple held up.

The case can go at least three ways from here. Judge Todd W. Robinson can cut the figure or order a fresh damages trial, the two requests Apple is expected to make when the case returns to him ^[5]. The Federal Circuit can vacate the damages, as it did with Caltech, or find no infringement at all, as it did with WARF ^[12][9]. Or the number holds. The strongest evidence for that outcome is in this docket. Robinson threw out Taction's claims in 2023 after excluding testimony from its technical expert, Dr. James Oliver, and narrowing how the patents were read ^[7]. In August 2025 the Federal Circuit reversed him, ruling he abused his discretion on the expert and misread the patent claims ^[8].

I think the infringement finding is the sturdier half of this verdict and the $5.7 billion is the half at risk. The appeals court has already backed Taction's expert and its reading of the patents once ^[8], and the largest reversal on Apple's list, Caltech, turned on how damages were calculated ^[12]. That view is wrong if Robinson leaves the figure alone and the Federal Circuit affirms it ^[5], and it is wrong in the other direction if Apple wins a WARF-style ruling that there was no infringement to pay for ^[9].