Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) emerged victorious from a patent infringement case filed by ContentGuard Holdings, a privacy technology company and a subsidiary of Pendrell Corp (NASDAQ:PCO).
A federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas found that the Apple did not violate the five digital rights management (DRM) owned by ContentGuard. The DRM patents involved in the case included the U.S. patent numbers: 6,963,859; 7,523,072; 8,001,053; 8,370,956; and 8,393,007.
The eight jurors who deliberated that case for approximately three hours concluded that Apple did not owe any damages to ContentGuard. The attorney representing Apple in the litigation declined to comment on the decision of the jury.
Allegations against Apple
ContentGuard alleged that Apple infringed its patents by producing and selling its devices that use the iTunes and iBooks applications to distribute DRM-protected books, songs, movies, and TV shows. Apple denied the allegations, and argued that the patents of the privacy technology company were invalid.
In its ruling, the Texas jury also concluded that the iPhone maker failed to prove that the patents of ContentGuard were invalid.
On the other hand, Samuel Baxter, the lawyer representing ContentGuard told Reuters that they were disappointment by the outcome in the case.
In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Pendrell stated that ContentGuard is “assessing the jury’s findings and evaluating its options to challenge the verdict.”
Google & Samsung also won a similar case
In September, another jury cleared Google, now operating as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930) of infringing the same patents in a separate litigation.
ContentGuard Holding filed a patent infringement case against Apple in 2013. The following year, the privacy technology company filed a similar case against Google, and Samsung.
Content Guard Holdings also accused Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), DIRECTV, HTC Corp (TPE: 2498), Huawei Technology (SHE: 002502), and Motorola Mobility of using its DRM solutions without license.
Apple stock added to Goldman Sachs’ “conviction buy list”
The stock price of Apple closed $119.30 per share, up 0.44% on Friday. Goldman Sachs recently added the stock to its “conviction buy list.” The investment bank projected that the company’s stock price could increase 43% over the next twelve months. Goldman Sachs set a price target of $163 on the stock.
