On September 25, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California issued a verdict in the first-instance trial, finding that the Taptic Engine haptic motors used in Apple’s iPhone and Apple Watch infringed on two U.S. patents held by Taction. The jury awarded damages of $5.7 billion (approximately 38.263 billion yuan), setting a new record for the highest damages awarded by a U.S. jury.

Taction is a company with commercial products on the market, specializing in the Transporter series of haptic vibration modules for applications such as headphones, VR/AR, gaming devices, wearables, and medical rehabilitation. It previously signed a manufacturing agreement with Foxconn for the mass production of the Transporter 4.0.

The case originated on April 26, 2021, when Taction filed a lawsuit against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California regarding U.S. Patents Nos. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117. The devices alleged to be infringing included multiple iPhone models and the Apple Watch.

In its complaint, Taction alleged that since 2016, Apple has used ferrofluid in the Taptic Engine to dampen vibrations and, by positioning the mass for in-plane bending and suspension, enables the actuator to produce in-plane motion. This results in more refined haptic feedback and addresses the issues of excessive noise and limited frequency response found in earlier designs. The plaintiff also submitted photos of a teardown of the Taptic Engine from the 2020 iPhone SE.

Apple subsequently filed four Inter Partes Review (IPR) challenges with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in an attempt to have the two patents invalidated. In 2022, the USPTO determined that Apple had failed to persuade the examining authority that at least one claim was susceptible to invalidity and decided not to institute any of the proceedings. In 2023, the district court issued a summary judgment in favor of Apple, finding no infringement; in 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed that judgment and remanded the case for retrial.

In this jury retrial, the jury found Apple guilty of infringing two of Taction’s haptic patents and awarded $5.7 billion in damages. However, the jury also determined that Apple’s infringement was not willful, meaning Taction cannot seek treble damages; the $5.7 billion represents the base amount of compensatory damages.

This ruling is a first-instance decision and not a final, binding judgment.