Apple Faces $5.7 Billion Haptics Verdict As Taction Patent Fight Turns
A California jury ordered Apple to pay Taction Technology $5.7 billion after finding patent infringement tied to haptic feedback systems, while Apple denies using the company’s vibration technology and plans to appeal.
Apple has been ordered to pay $5.7 billion in damages in a haptics patent case, the BBC reported, after a US jury found that the iPhone maker used Taction Technology’s vibration technology without permission.
The verdict gives Taction, an audio company that makes headphones and gaming headsets, a reversal in a fight it began in 2021.
The company had accused Apple of infringing two patents for haptics systems, the vibration-based feedback used when a phone receives a message, a button is pressed or a device simulates a touch response.
Apple’s exposure centers on technology built into products such as the iPhone and Apple Watch.
Its Taptic Engine, the company’s name for haptic feedback in its devices, debuted with the Apple Watch in 2014 and later expanded as Apple improved the underlying system across more products.
Apple rejected the verdict and signaled an appeal, arguing that the jury’s damages award was not supported by the trial record.
The company’s response drew a line between its Taptic Engine and Taction’s patents, saying product testing presented in court showed the two technologies were not the same.
Taction’s complaint placed the dispute on Apple’s improvements to device vibration quality.
The company argued that better haptic vibrations helped Apple improve the overall user experience and that the tech giant was capitalising on Taction’s innovation by selling devices that infringed its patents.
It also accused Apple of using the inventions without a licence or authority.
The case had previously moved in Apple’s favor when a district-court decision in San Diego sided with the company in 2023.
The dispute returned after a federal appeals court revived the matter, sending it toward a September trial in Southern California federal court and the damages verdict that followed on Friday.
The jury’s finding did not classify the infringement as willful.
The award adds another large intellectual-property loss to Apple’s recent docket.
In November 2025, a judge ordered the company to pay $634 million to medical technology firm Masimo after a jury found infringement of a blood-oxygen reading patent.
For now, the Taction ruling leaves Apple with a multibillion-dollar judgment to challenge and a legal record that stops short of willful infringement.
