Smartflash LLC sues Apple again over use of same patents in iPhone 6/6 Plus and iPad Air 2
Apple faces second suit from victorious patent firm — (Reuters) - Fresh off a $532.9 million jury win against Apple Inc (AAPL.O), a Texas company is again suing the tech giant …
Context & Ripple Effects
Smartflash LLC is doubling down within weeks of its $532.9 million jury verdict against Apple, filing a second suit that accuses the same three data-storage-and-payment patents of being infringed by the newer iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air 2. The move turns one courtroom win into an ongoing royalty campaign against successive product generations.
The arc that follows matters more than the new complaint: a judge later voided the $533M award and ordered a damages retrial, and an appeals court ultimately invalidated the Smartflash patents outright — unwinding the very victory this second suit was built on.
First-order effects
- Apple now faces parallel exposure on its newest flagship hardware over the same patents it was already ordered to pay hundreds of millions for, adding litigation cost across the iPhone 6/6 Plus and iPad Air 2 product lines.
- Smartflash converts its first verdict into leverage for a broader settlement or licensing push, targeting devices released after the original accused products.
Second-order effects
- Apple's incentive to attack patent validity rather than merely contest damages hardens — the path that led to the award being voided and the patents being invalidated at the Federal Circuit.
- Other companies sued by assertion firms gain a template: challenge eligibility of software-style claims early, since a single invalidation can erase an entire verdict.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, patent-assertion business models built on broad software claims become structurally fragile — verdicts can be won at trial yet erased on appeal, shifting the economics toward deep-pocketed defendants who can fund multi-year validity challenges.
- Large device makers increasingly run patent litigation in both directions: defending against suits like Smartflash's while pressing their own claims, as Apple did in winning a $538.6M retrial against Samsung over iPhone design patents.
The trend: Software-patent assertion is becoming a two-front war where trial wins matter less than appellate survivability, and device makers like Apple are learning to litigate defensively and offensively at once.