A US appeals court has thrown out a jury verdict that had fined Apple $300m for infringing the standard essential patents (SEPs) of patent holding company Optis Cellular Technology.

On Monday (16 June), judges Sharon Prost, Jimmie Reyna and Leonard Stark at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, vacated both the infringement and damages judgment and ordered a new trial in the Eastern District of Texas.

Apple successfully argued that the verdict form had not been clearly laid out, violating Apple’s right to jury unanimity on each legal claim against it.

Optis Technology had originally sued Apple for infringing five of its SEPs that covered the long-term evolution (LTE) standard, through products including its iPad, iPhone and watches.

The precedential opinion authored by Prost agreed with Apple’s argument that the verdict form was overly broad, improperly combining all asserted patents into a single infringement question and permitting the jury to find Apple liable for infringement regardless of whether all jurors agreed that Apple was infringing the same patent.

She continued: “As long as each juror believed some claim of some patent was infringed, the jury was required to answer ‘Yes’ – even if the various jurors believed that Apple was infringing a different asserted patent. In other words, the question whether Apple infringed ‘Any’ of the asserted claims erroneously required an affirmative answer even in a situation where all jurors did not agree that the same patent was being infringed.”

As a result, Optis has been awarded damages for a scope of infringement that it had not proven and that the jury had not unanimously found.

This is the second nine-figure sum awarded to Optis that has been subsequently overturned in the US legal battle between the parties.

In the first trial, a jury found that Apple had infringed some of the asserted claims and had awarded just over $506m as a reasonable royalty for past sales. Apple sought a new trial arguing that the jury did not hear evidence of Optis’s obligation to license the patents on fair reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The district court granted a new trial only on damages as to the amount of a FRAND royalty for the use of the asserted patents. In the subsequent damages retrial, the jury awarded Optis the now overturned $300m as a lump sum.

Optis is also embroiled in litigation with the tech titan in the UK. In May the UK Court of Appeal issued a significant FRAND decision, overturning the High Court FRAND determination and ordering Apple to pay $502m for the use of Optis-owned 4G technology in its iPads and iPhones.

Optis was represented by Goodwin Procter partner William Jay and associates Matthew Ginther and William Evans. It was also represented by Irell & Manella partners Jason Sheasby, Andrew Strabone and Hong Zhong.

Apple was represented by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, led by partner Mark Fleming. Other members of the team included partners Joseph Mueller, Timothy Syrett, Brittany Blueitt Amadi and Mark Selwyn.