After Apple was accused of violating Koss’ patents for wireless headphones, Apple agreed to settle a lawsuit over AirPods and Beats headphones, the companies said in court on Saturday ahead of a scheduled trial on Monday.
Koss accused Apple of patent infringement in a 2020 lawsuit. At the time, the company claimed to have invented wireless headphones in general, and true wireless in-ear headphones in particular:
Koss developed an in-ear prototype based on its chip design efforts, with working prototypes from the mid-2000s very similar to the well-known consumer products that flooded the market a decade and a half later.
The first of five specific claims appears to allege that Apple has infringed a Koss patent on the technology behind any wireless earbuds.
The ‘025 patent generally describes wireless headphones that include transceiver circuitry for receiving streaming audio from a data source, such as a digital audio player or computer, over a wireless network. […]
The Accused headphones have no significant non-infringing use.
But a few days before the trial, Apple and Koss reached an agreement, according to Reuters. The details are unclear, and neither the companies nor lawyers are responding to requests for comment. Here’s what the publication said:
With the case due to begin on Monday, the companies have told a federal court in Waco, Texas, that they have settled allegations that Apple infringed on Koss’ patents for wireless headphones.
U.S. District Judge Alan Albright dismissed the case with prejudice the same day, meaning it could not be resubmitted.
At the time, Koss was asking for royalties from sales of AirPods and Beats wireless headphones in an Apple case, but Apple claimed that its products did not infringe any patents.
A statement Saturday in Texas said the companies had settled “all differences among themselves,” Reuters reported.
Koss has also sued other competitors for patent infringement on wireless headphones, but those cases are now pending in other courts.
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