The news
A federal jury found on Friday, September 25, 2026 that Apple (AAPL) infringed two haptics patents held by Taction Technology and awarded about $5.7 billion in damages, a Taptic Engine patent verdict that Apple says it will appeal.
The verdict came in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California before Judge Todd W. Robinson, according to the court's docket. Seven jurors deliberated for two days before siding with Taction. The docket records damages of $5,721,961,750 and shows jurors also rejected Apple's challenge to the patents' validity. The patents are U.S. Patent Nos. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117. TechStartups said the award is reportedly the largest patent infringement award in U.S. history.
The accused technology is the Taptic Engine, the vibration motor that produces touch feedback in iPhones and Apple Watches. In its April 2021 complaint, Taction described itself as a specialist in enhanced haptics and said its inventions use flexures, coils, magnets and magnetic ferrofluid to damp unwanted vibrations. The complaint alleged that Apple's early Taptic Engines lacked ferrofluid damping and flexures, while later versions used both.
Apple rejected the outcome. In a statement reported by MacRumors, the company said it strongly disagrees with the verdict and damages, calling them unsupported by the facts, and added: "Apple's Taptic Engine is fundamentally different from Taction's technology." Taction's lead counsel, Lance Yang, said the jury vindicated the company's patent rights after a wait of five and a half years for trial.
The case has already been revived once on appeal. In 2023 the district court granted Apple summary judgment of noninfringement, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated that ruling on August 13, 2025 and sent the case back. Jurors did not find that Apple's infringement was willful, according to the docket and MacRumors.
The numbers
- Jury award
- $5,721,961,750 (about $5.7 billion), per the court docket
- Patents found infringed
- 2
- Jury deliberations
- Two days, seven jurors
- Case filed
- April 26, 2021
Why CEOs should care
For CFOs and general counsel at hardware companies, the lesson is concentration risk. A single component inside two product lines produced a claimed liability in the billions. Review how supplier contracts allocate intellectual property risk for key components, whether indemnities are capped, and whether your company or your supplier owns the design choices that tend to draw claims. Ask outside counsel which features in your own roadmap have had formal freedom-to-operate reviews.
For boards and investors, the absence of a willfulness finding matters. Willfulness is typically the gateway to enhanced damages under U.S. patent law, so its absence limits the upside for Taction at this stage. The number is also far from final. Post-trial motions can reduce or overturn awards, and Apple has said it will appeal. Directors at any company facing large verdicts should ask how reserves and disclosures will treat an award that could take years to resolve.
For product leaders, the timeline is instructive. The case was filed in 2021, ended on summary judgment in 2023, revived on appeal and tried five and a half years later. Design decisions made now can surface in court late in a product's life, after the feature has become standard. Documenting independent development and design-around options early is cheaper than defending them later. For IT buyers purchasing iPhones and Apple Watches in volume, nothing changes in the near term: none of the reports describe an injunction or sales restriction.
The bigger picture
Apple is fighting on several legal fronts at once. On September 23, 2026, Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of California certified a class of card issuers suing Apple over the fees it charges for Apple Pay transactions, a separate antitrust case seeking repayment of those fees and an injunction, according to the court's docket and MacRumors. The two matters are unrelated: one is a patent verdict over a hardware component, the other a class-certification order in an antitrust challenge to a services fee. Neither is final.
What’s next
Judgment had not been entered when TechStartups reported on September 26. Once it is, expect Apple to file post-trial motions asking the judge to set aside or reduce the award; the judge's rulings on those motions will show whether the award survives intact. An appeal to the Federal Circuit would follow if the verdict stands, since Apple has said it will appeal. Watch for how Apple describes the case in its next annual report, and for whether Taction seeks an injunction or ongoing royalties.
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