A federal jury in Texas said Apple Inc must pay nearly $308.5 million to Personalized Media Communications LLC (PMC) for infringing a patent related to digital rights management.
Late on Friday, the jurors directed Apple to pay a running royalty to PMC, which is generally based on the amount of sales of a product or service.
PMC, a licensing firm, had originally sued Apple in 2015 claiming the tech giant’s iTunes service infringed 7 of its patents.
The iPhone maker successfully challenged PMC’s case at the U.S. patent office, but an appeals court in March last year reversed that decision, paving the way for the trial.
Apple did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment but told Bloomberg that it was disappointed with the ruling and would appeal.
Apple was quoted as saying by Bloomberg that “cases like this, brought by companies that don’t make or sell any products, stifle innovation and ultimately harm consumers.”
Sugarland, Texas-based PMC has infringement cases pending against companies including Netflix Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Amazon.com Inc.
The case is Personalized Media v. Apple Inc.