A federal jury in San Diego has ordered Apple to pay $5.7 billion to Taction Technology Inc., finding that the iPhone maker's Taptic Engine infringes two of Taction's haptic patents. The award is the largest in U.S. patent verdict history, though Apple's long record of appealing—and often erasing—such judgments suggests the check may never clear.

The decision caps a legal battle that began in 2021 and has already traveled to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit once.

Why Apple owes $5.7 billion

Taction accused Apple of copying the tactile transducer technology that generates the taps and vibrations users feel on an iPhone or Apple Watch. The disputed patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117, cover systems that produce vibrations in the 40 to 200 Hz range that can be perceived through touch. Haptic feedback—the tactile response users feel for alerts and on-screen interactions—has become a core part of how modern smartphones and wearables communicate with their users.

The San Diego jury deliberated across parts of two days before returning its verdict. Jurors, however, also determined that Apple's infringement was not willful. That finding is significant: under federal patent law, judges may treble an award in cases of serious infringement, and Taction will be unable to benefit from that provision.

Apple has argued against both the verdict and the amount, insisting that its Taptic Engine works differently from the patented designs. The case now returns to U.S. District Judge Todd W. Robinson for postial proceedings, where Apple is expected to ask him to reduce the award or order a fresh damages trial. Such motions are a routine phase of U.S. patent litigation, and any appeal from that stage would go to the Federal Circuit—the same court that revived Taction's case in August 2025 and the venue for patent appeals from U.S. district courts nationwide.

A ruling already overturned once

Taction first sued in 2021, but Judge Robinson handed Apple a summary judgment win in 2023, throwing out Taction's claims before trial after excluding testimony from the company's technical expert, Dr. James Oliver. The judge also narrowed how the patents were construed.

In August 2025, the Federal Circuit reversed, ruling that the district court abused its discretion by excluding the expert's opinions and misreading the patent claims.

Apple's history with big verdicts

Apple has been on the losing end of enormous patent verdicts before, and appeals courts have a track record of significantly reducing—or outright eliminating—the sums owed.

In 2018, the Federal Circuit erased a roughly $500 million win for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, ruling that jurors had no reasonable basis to find infringement. Two years earlier, a Texas judge threw out a $625.6 million VirnetX verdict over FaceTime and iMessage patents and ordered new trials. The Federal Circuit also canceled a $300 million Optis Cellular award and sent it back for a third trial, and it wiped out a $1.1 billion Caltech verdict that rested on a faulty damages theory.

More recently, in November 2025, a California jury handed Masimo $634 million over Apple Watch health-sensor patents. Apple is currently appealing that verdict as well.

Measured against that history, the Taction award stands apart: at $5.7 billion, it exceeds the combined value of those earlier verdicts as originally rendered, and it now heads into the same review process that has repeatedly reshaped or erased prior judgments against Apple.