Apple Ordered To Pay 533 Million Dollars In A Patent Lawsuit

The company has been ordered by a Texan court to pay $ 532.9 million to Smartflash, a Texas-based firm that owns and licenses tech-related patents. The court found certain iTunes features to be infringing upon the above company’s patents related to digital rights management, data storage and managing access through payment systems. The intellectual property filings (US 8,336,772; US 8,118,221; US 7,334,720) describe techniques to manage the storage of audio and video files, apps and games, including methods to ensure that data are purchased properly before being allowed to run on a portable device. Smartflash also prosecutes patent lawsuits against Samsung, the first rival of Apple in the smartphone market and against Amazon and Google too.