Jury orders Apple to pay $5.7 billion over Taptic Engine patents

Taction Technology, a San Diego haptics company that makes audio and gaming accessories, sued Apple in 2021. Taction argued Apple's Taptic Engine used two of its patents on vibration-based tactile feedback without a license.

The jury agreed. After a trial that started September 14 and two days of deliberation, jurors found Apple infringed both patents and awarded Taction more than $5.7 billion on Friday.

• Patents: US 10,659,885 and 10,820,117, covering vibration-based tactile transducer technology.
• Verdict: Apple infringed both patents, but not willfully.
• Damages: More than $5.7 billion, among the largest patent awards on record.

The jury did not find Apple's infringement willful, meaning it stopped short of the harsher penalties a "willful" finding can trigger.

Vibration feedback sounds minor, but it's baked into how hundreds of millions of people interact with their phones and watches every day. That scale is exactly why patents behind it are worth billions in court.

Taction's patents cover the kind of vibration-based transducer that turns an electrical signal into the tap, click, or rumble you feel in your hand. Taction's complaint said Apple was "capitalizing on Taction's innovation and success" without a license, according to the original filing.

Apple disagrees. The company says Taction's own testing during the trial confirmed the Taptic Engine works differently from what Taction patented.

The claims themselves get specific. Court filings describe the patents as covering "an apparatus for imparting motion to the skin of a user," built from coils that carry electrical current paired with magnets. A central dispute at trial was whether Apple's hardware counted as a "highly damped" transducer the way Taction's patent describes.

In real life If you've ever felt your iPhone or Apple Watch buzz when you tap an app icon, get a notification, or type on the keyboard, that's the Taptic Engine this case is about.

A federal judge dismissed Taction's case in 2023, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revived it a couple of years later, sending the dispute back toward trial.

Seven jurors heard the case. They deliberated for two full days after the trial wrapped, before returning their verdict on Friday afternoon.

By the numbers: $5.7 billion would rank among the largest patent infringement payouts ever recorded in the U.S., ahead of the more than $3 billion in verdicts VLSI has won against Intel.

For scale, $5.7 billion is close to a fifth of Apple's entire net profit for its most recent fiscal quarter, when the company reported $29.8 billion in profit on $109.4 billion in revenue.

Taction's lead counsel, Lance Yang of Quinn Emanuel, told CNBC the company "waited five and a half years for this case to get to trial, so it was a long time coming."

Litigation funding is part of this story too. Bloomberg Law has described Taction as backed by outside litigation funding, a common arrangement where an investor covers legal costs in exchange for a cut of any award. That's part of why patent cases against a company as large as Apple can drag on for half a decade before reaching a jury.

Apple says it will appeal. In a statement to CNBC, the company said: "We strongly disagree with today's verdict and the damages awarded, which are entirely unsupported by the facts. Apple's Taptic Engine is fundamentally different from Taction's technology, which Taction's own testing of Apple's products confirmed during trial. Apple does not use Taction's technology, and we will appeal."

The catch: An appeal can take months or longer, and courts can reduce damages, uphold them, or order an entirely new trial, so the $5.7 billion figure isn't final yet.

This isn't Apple's first nine-figure patent fight, and its recent record on appeals isn't encouraging.

Apple isn't the only device maker in this position. VLSI Technology has won more than $3 billion combined across separate jury verdicts against Intel since 2021, in a fight dating back to 2017.

That case isn't settled either. Intel recently convinced a different jury that VLSI is effectively controlled by litigation funder Fortress Investment Group, a finding that could let Intel avoid paying the verdicts entirely. Big patent wins, in other words, don't always mean big checks get cut.

Apple's own history with haptics litigation goes back further than Taction. Immersion Corporation sued Apple years earlier, also alleging that haptic feedback in iPhones, Apple Watches, and MacBooks used its patented technology. That case ended in a settlement for an undisclosed amount, without a public trial or jury verdict.

Masimo sued Apple in 2020 over pulse oximetry patents used in the Apple Watch. In 2023, an International Trade Commission ruling led to a U.S. import ban on some Apple Watch models, and Apple temporarily disabled blood-oxygen monitoring before shipping a redesigned version of the feature in 2025.

A separate jury in that same Masimo lawsuit awarded $634 million in November 2025 over Apple Watch heart-rate and notification features. In July 2026, the trial judge denied Apple's bid for a new trial and let that verdict stand, rejecting the company's post-trial challenge.

If the Taction case follows a similar path, Apple's appeal could take months, and the Masimo outcome suggests judges won't necessarily side with Apple even after a loss at trial.

A jury verdict isn't the last word. Apple can first ask the trial judge to throw out the verdict or order a new trial, the same move it tried and lost in the Masimo case.

If that fails, Apple can take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the same court that revived Taction's lawsuit back in 2023. That court can uphold the verdict, cut the damages, or send the whole case back for a new trial.

None of that happens quickly. The Federal Circuit took roughly two years to rule on Taction's first appeal, and Apple's Masimo appeal is still working through the same kind of process nearly a year after that verdict.

Interest adds up while a case drags on, too. In the VLSI case, the court's final judgment included tens of millions of dollars in pre-judgment and post-judgment interest on top of the jury's original award, a reminder that a years-long appeal doesn't freeze the amount owed in place.