It's more than double what Apple paid for P.A. Semi and Intrinsity put together, the fabless semiconductor design firms that are the foundation of Apple's processor engineering capabilities.

>$862m isn't that huge in the grand scheme of things.

Well, it normalizes large patent payment damages which isn't good and guarantees that non-giant companies will never, ever be able to compete in this space because investors are spooked over random near $1b lawsuits.

Big companies seem to not mind the patent status quo for some reason. I suspect it just keeps competition away by raising the barrier to entry. This should be concerning to all. The refrain of "Apple can afford it" is scary as Apple is the world's wealthiest company. Of course they can afford it. That's besides the point.

If it's $862m, last I checked, it will take them about 30 hours to bring in the necessary revenue--if they want to pay out of profits (I'm totally guessing here, what are real net margins on their hardware? 15-20%?), it'll take a couple days.

Given that large companies face large numbers of patent suits however, typically litigating several in parallel, spending all this money on just one could indeed be seen as distressing.