Patent holdings firm WiLAN loses second suit against Apple

A Southern California court on Wednesday granted Apple a summary judgment absolving the company of infringing two LTE patents asserted by Canadian patent holdings company WiLAN.

As part of the ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California found two patent infringement claims against Apple invalid and therefore not infringed, reports Reuters. WiLAN was first to confirm the decision in a prepared statement.

"WiLAN has been advised that Judge Dana M. Sabraw has issued a ruling today that grants Apple's motion for summary judgment," the company said.

WiLan's case goes back to December 2012, when the so-called "patent troll" leveled charges of infringement against Apple, HTC and Sierra Wireless, Inc. Apple was the lone holdout in the suit after the other two defendants settled.

Founded in 1992 as a developer of wireless technologies, WiLAN morphed into a patent holdings company in 2006 after "realizing the value that its intellectual property brought to industry." After the transformation, the firm used its patent portfolio to launch attacks against various established tech companies.

Apple was targeted in 2007 and again in 2010 over alleged infringement of wireless and Bluetooth technology patents.

Today's ruling comes nearly one year after Apple successfully dodged a WiLAN patent suit in Texas. In that case, a jury found Apple not guilty of infringing on WiLAN's owned cellular wireless technologies after two years of trial proceedings.

According to Reuters, WiLAN's business suffered from the Texas loss. The holdings firm is reviewing today's judgment and notes it has another case against Apple in the same Southern California court in which five LTE patents are being asserted.