Patently Apple posted a legal report back in February 2019 titled "Apple Sued for Infringing 7 Patents originating from Samsung, LG and Panasonic over iPhones and the Apple Watch 4 using LTE." The company suing Apple was a group of patent trolls listed as: Optis Wireless; Optis Cellular Technology; Wired Planet; and PanOptis Patent Management. In August 2020 Apple lost their case and ordered to pay $506 million.

In April 2021 U.S. District Court Judge Rodney Gilstrap tossed the case stating that the jury should have been allowed to consider whether the royalty demand was consistent with a requirement that standard-essential patents be licensed on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory," or FRAND, terms.

Apple argued that the entire trial in the Optis case was tainted because the jury wasn’t told of the patent owner’s licensing obligations. The issue wasn’t brought before the jury because Optis asked that the judge, not the jury, to determine whether it was compliant with its FRAND requirements.

This afternoon Bloomberg is reporting that "Apple Inc. was told to pay $300 million in royalties after a retrial in a patent dispute over wireless technology used in its iPhones and other products, part of a global fight with a company that says it owns patents on the LTE cellular standard.

The jury in Marshall, Texas, said PanOptis Patent Management and its Optis Cellular and Unwired Planet units were owed that amount as a lump sum to cover past and future use of the technology. An earlier jury last year had awarded $506.2 million."

The Texas trial is part of an effort by Optis to collect as much as $7 billion from the iPhone maker. A U.K. court may decide to set a global royalty rate, prompting Apple lawyers in July to threaten that the company may pull out of the British market if forced to pay a "commercially unacceptable" amount.

Debates over how to value patents on so-called “standard-essential technology” have roiled the tech industry for decades, and have become more imperative as wireless inventions are incorporated in additional consumer products, like home appliances and automobiles. For more on today's verdict, read the full Bloomberg report on BNN Bloomberg.