SAN DIEGO — A federal jury awarded Taction Technology $5,721,961,750 after finding that Apple infringed two patents tied to the tactile-feedback systems used in iPhones and Apple Watches, a verdict Reuters described as a U.S. record. A detailed case tracker independently reported the exact award and said the verdict form was returned Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
The verdict is a major legal setback for Apple, but it is not yet a final, immediately payable judgment. The public docket did not show an entered judgment as of Saturday morning, according to the tracker, and Apple told Bloomberg Law that it will appeal. Post-trial motions and appellate review could still change, reduce or overturn the result.
What the jury decided
Jurors found that Apple’s Taptic Engine infringed claims 17 and 19 of U.S. Patent No. 10,659,885 and claim 16 of U.S. Patent No. 10,820,117. The same verdict rejected Apple’s invalidity defenses, while finding that the infringement was not willful. The tracker said the form did not allocate the award among patents, products or time periods; Bloomberg reported that jurors deliberated over parts of two days.
Taction, a San Diego company, describes the inventions as tactile transducers that produce bass-frequency vibrations a user can feel. Its case accused Apple’s compact Taptic Engine of using a closed-loop controller and ferrofluid in ways covered by the patents. The underlying theory appears in the Federal Circuit’s 2025 appeals ruling, which sent the dispute back for trial after reversing an earlier win for Apple.
Apple denies using Taction’s technology. The company said its Taptic Engine is fundamentally different and that years of testing support that position. Taction attorney Mikaela Pine said the verdict vindicated the company’s inventors and the validity of its work, according to Bloomberg Law. Those statements remain the parties’ positions; the jury’s findings resolve the trial-stage questions but do not end the litigation.
How the case reached trial
Taction filed the case in 2021. A district judge entered summary judgment for Apple in 2023 after excluding parts of Taction’s expert analysis. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed in August 2025, concluding that the trial court had abused its discretion in applying local patent-disclosure rules and striking expert opinions. An August 2026 court order then set the remaining infringement and validity issues for the September trial.
The amount makes the case nationally significant even before the appeals process begins. It exceeds the nine-figure verdicts that more commonly dominate major technology-patent disputes and targets a feedback component embedded across flagship consumer devices. The verdict does not, by itself, order Apple to stop selling any product, and no injunction was announced with it.
The next steps belong first to U.S. District Judge Todd W. Robinson, who can consider post-trial motions and enter judgment. Any appeal would return the dispute to the Federal Circuit, the specialized appellate court that already revived the case once. Until those stages play out, the $5.72 billion figure is the jury’s award—not a final measure of what Apple will ultimately pay.
