Amazon Web Services (AWS) must pay computer storage and data management company Kove $525 million for patent infringement, a jury in the US has ruled.

Chicago-based Kove first filed the lawsuit against AWS in December 2018, alleging that products offered by the tech giant, including Amazon’s S3 storage and its DynamoDB database service, and infringed on three of its patents relating to systems and methods for managing the storage, search, and retrieval of data.

Kove argued that "years before the advent of the cloud”, the company had developed technology that enabled high-performance cloud storage. The lawsuit went on to allege that AWS then used this technology, without permission, to build a number of its cloud services.

On April 10, a jury found in Kove’s favor however, it rejected the allegation that the infringement was willful.

In a statement to DCD, a spokesperson for Amazon said: “We disagree with this ruling and intend to appeal. We thank the jury, which also acknowledged that AWS did not willfully infringe on patents.”

In 2023, Kove filed a separate lawsuit against Google alleging that the company had also infringed on the same three patents. That case is still ongoing.