Apple Agrees to $24.9M Patent Settlement with Dallas Firm

APPLE WILL GET A 3-YEAR LICENSE ON THE PATENT, UNDER THE SETTLEMENT

Technology giant Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) has agreed to pay a Dallas-based patent licensing company $24.9 million to settle a long-running lawsuit that alleged Apple’s Siri violated a patent held by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

Dynamic Advances has an exclusive license on Rensselaer’s patent, which predates the launch of Siri by four years, the company said.

In its lawsuit, Dynamic Advances, a subsidiary of Marathon Patent Group (Nasdaq: MARA), alleged that Siri was developed by Rensselaer before Cupertino, California-based Apple introduced the feature in the iPhone 4S in 2011. The patent involved was issued in 2007.

APPLES’S VOICE-CONTROLLED INTELLIGENT ASSISTANT

Siri is Apple’s voice-controlled intelligent assistant that allows users of the iPhone 4S and later versions, as well as iPad and iPod Touch devices, to speak language commands to operate mobile devices and apps.

The Albany Business Review reported that under the terms of the agreement, Apple will receive a patent license and a promise that it will not be sued again for three years.

Dynamic is expected to pay half the settlement to Rensselaer, legal counsel and the predecessor exclusive licensee of the patents involved in the lawsuit, the Business Review said.

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