Inside the Largest Patent Verdict Ever: Quinn Emanuel’s $5.7 Billion Win Over Apple

John is joined by Tigran Guledjian, Scott Watson, and Lance Yang, all partners in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office and trial counsel for Taction Technology. They discuss the $5.7 billion jury verdict their team won against Apple in a San Diego patent case, the largest patent verdict ever, and how the team won the verdict after the court excluded Taction’s damages expert in the middle of trial.

Taction, a small San Diego company led by CEO John Steinberg, owns patented technology invented by Dr. James Biggs that lets a device vibrate across a full range of frequencies rather than one. At trial, the team likened this to playing every piano key instead of only one. Taction alleged the wideband haptics Apple introduced in the iPhone 7 infringed its patent. The case was filed in 2021. The court granted Apple summary judgment of non-infringement, the Federal Circuit reversed, and an eight-day trial followed in September 2026.

Apple opened the trial promising to prove that Dr. Biggs was not the first inventor and that the patent was therefore invalid. However, Apple dropped this prior-art invalidity defense mid-trial. This left the patent’s priority undisputed. Taction reminded the jury in closing of Apple’s unfulfilled promise.

Apple’s remaining enablement and indefiniteness defenses also failed. On infringement, Apple argued independent development by its own engineers, but independent development is not a defense to patent infringement, unlike in trade secret cases. Apple’s head of haptics, who testified as its first witness, had testified at deposition that he did not know whether Apple infringed Taction’s patent, even after reviewing the patent to prepare for deposition as Apple’s corporate representative.

For damages, Taction sought a per-unit reasonable royalty. Proving damages was complicated by a pretrial Daubert ruling that excluded one adjustment a technical expert made to licensing information. Then, mid-trial, the court excluded the damages expert’s entire opinion because his model relied, in part, on the excluded adjustment. Fortunately, the team had built a factual record from its first witness, including the confidential but very large number of infringing units and evidence of the technology’s value, so the jury could set a royalty without expert testimony.

The jury returned its $5.7 billion verdict two days after closing arguments. The $5.7 billion reflected compensatory damages with no punitive damages. Apple has filed a post-trial motion to overturn the verdict.