Apple and Qualcomm sought to transfer the patent troll case filed by Red Rock in 2021 to California, but their appeals have been denied by the U.S. District Judge and the Federal Circuit Court.
Lawsuit seeks damages from years of iPhone sales
Apple is no stranger to patent infringement lawsuits from patent trolls, and one that slipped under the radar since its start in 2021 has resurfaced. Red Rock Analytics, a non-practicing entity and known patent troll, filed a lawsuit with Apple and Qualcomm over U.S. Patent No. 7,346,313 in Texas.
According to from Law360, Apple and Qualcomm were denied their appeal to move the lawsuit to California by both the U.S. District Judge Alan Albright and the Federal Circuit Court. So, the lawsuit will be carried out in the patent troll-friendly Texas courts instead.
There's little information available about the company filing these patent lawsuits. It filed a similar one against Samsung for the same patent previously, and the request for an injunction against Apple was originally filed in 2019.
These kinds of cases are slow-moving to the point of them being measured in years, if not decades. The 2019 filing mentioned the iPhone 7 through iPhone X, while the 2021 lawsuit mentioned the iPhone 12.
The patent itself covers a system for calibrating the balance of in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) signals in radio transceivers. The original lawsuit named Qualcomm's SMR526, SDR865, and SDX55M products.
The company is seeking a jury trial and requests a long list of reliefs, including enjoinments barring Apple and Qualcomm from infringing on the patent in question. They also hope for damages and royalty payments.