Apple Inc. must pay Personalized Media Communications LLC. $308.5 million after a federal jury in Texas found Apple infringed on a digital-rights-management patent.
Apple must pay Personalized Media Communications a running royalty normally based on the number of sales of a product or service.
Personalized Media Communications sued Apple for infringing on its FairPlay patent, a digital rights management technology used to deliver encrypted content from Apple's iTunes, App Store and Apple Music services, according to Bloomberg News.
According to Personalized Media Communications, a FairPlay-encrypted file, such as media content or a software program, is digitally encrypted and can only be decrypted by an authorized user device using user-specific or device-specific decryption information.
The case was filed in 2015 and has taken twists and turns along the way. According to Reuters, Apple successfully contested the case at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office but an appeals court reversed the decision. Recently, a U.S. district judge denied Apple's request to make Personalized Media Communications' patent invalid.
Apple said it was disappointed with the verdict and planned to appeal.
"Cases like this, brought by companies that don't make or sell any products, stifle innovation and ultimately harm consumers," Apple said in a statement to Bloomberg.
An expert for Personalized Media Communications estimated that Apple owed the company $240 million in royalties for using its technology. The jury, however, ordered Apple to pay a running royalty - or the price decided by the sale of licensed goods or processes.
Personalized Media Communications of Texas has pending infringement claims against companies including Netflix, Inc., and Alphabet Inc.'s Google.
In November, Google and its YouTube service won a patent trial filed by Personalized Media over multiple patents. A lawsuit against Netflix is currently pending in New York.
