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This week, however, a federal jury returned a verdict against Apple in a lawsuit brought by a different kind of adversary: a public university. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's licensing arm, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, convinced a jury that Apple had infringed its patent for improving chip efficiency when the company incorporated the technology into some of its phones and tablets. Research institutions and universities have not traditionally been major players in patent litigation, and even now schools still launch relatively few patent suits compared to private companies – about 40 to 50 cases per year, according to preliminary research by University of Alberta professor Tania Bubela.