QCOM. O, a supplier of mobile chips, won a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple (AAPL. O), the maker of mobile phones, on Friday. A federal court jury in San Diego ruled that Apple infringed on three Qualcomm patents and had to pay Qualcomm $31 million.
Qualcomm sued Apple last year for infringing its patents related to extending cell phone battery life. During the eight-day trial, Qualcomm asked the jury to award a patent royalty of up to $1.41 for each patent-infringing iPhone.
The $31 million compensation is a drop in the bucket for Apple. Apple is the second most valuable American company after Microsoft (MSFT.O). Apple has a market capitalization of $866 billion and annual revenue of hundreds of billions of dollars. However, every mobile phone has to pay a patent fee judgment, so that Qualcomm can find new attacking points in the two-year patent litigation battle with Apple.
"Technologies invented by Qualcomm and other companies have enabled Apple to enter the market and succeed quickly," Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm's general legal adviser, said in a statement. "We are gratified that courts around the world have rejected Apple's strategy of refusing to pay us royalties for patents."
In a statement, Apple said it was disappointed with the verdict.
"Qualcomm's ongoing patent infringement lawsuit is merely an attempt to divert attention from the larger issue of the investigation of the company's business practices by the U.S. Federal Court and the rest of the world," Apple said. Apple did not comment on whether it would appeal.
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