Indian engineers, Professor Gurindar Sohi and Terani Vijaykumar, along with two other inventors have won a huge case against technology giant Apple in the US this week. Apple could be facing up to $862 million in damages for using patented technology developed by a Wisconsin university team without permission in many of its most popular devices.

According to the complaint filed by WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) in the Wisconsin court, Sohi led the lab that developed a 1998 patent on improving efficiency in computer processors. Gurindar Sohi and Terani Vijaykumar, both electrical and electronics engineering graduates of Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (Rajastahn) were part of a four-member team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that developed a breakthrough technology called ‘Table-based Data Speculation Circuit for Parallel Processing Computer’ which enhance the processing powers of a computer. The research and development was undertaken at WARF in 1998, and the university filed a valid patent back then.

In January 2014, WARF pressed charges against Apple on the grounds of illegally using the patented technology in  A7, A8, and A8X chips, the technology that powers the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air 2.

The jury ruled that Apple infringed upon all of the six patents in WARF’s complaint and rejected Apple’s request to prove patent invalidity. WARF had sued Apple for a sum of $862.4 million, but the jury must now decide how much Apple owes the foundation in damages for its infringing A7 processor, used in the iPhone 5S, the iPad Air, and iPad Mini.

WARF had sued Intel for the same patent in 2008 as well, but that case was reportedly settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.

Gurindar Sohi  is currently a professor of computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin Madison while Vijay Kumar is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University.