Apple was the loser in the fourth-largest patent verdict in U.S. history. A jury in East Texas federal court found the company infringed three patents in the Cover Flow, Time Machine and Spotlight features of its Mac operating system.

The plaintiff was a Yale computer science professor with a company called Mirror Worlds incorporated in New Haven, Connecticut and under a slightly different name in Tyler, Texas, part of a region known for its friendliness to patent claims. Nevertheless, a Fordham law professor told the Times the case represented " a very respectable computer scientist attacking a very visible and core technology of Apple," whose violations were found to be "willful" rather than unintentional. Apple is now trying to have the verdict reduced to $208 million. Otherwise it might have to dip a little further into its $25 billion cash hoard.

[NY Times, Bloomberg]