This is simply incredible.

In 2012, Apple won the year’s biggest patent verdict—more than $1 billion against Samsung. The company also lost one of that year’s biggest cases when an East Texas jury ordered it to pay $368 million to a company named VirnetX for infringing patents related to FaceTime and VPN On Demand functions used in iPhones, iPads, and Macs. VirnetX is a company some call a “patent troll” because its only business is now patent enforcement. Then, in March, US District Judge Leonard Davis ordered (PDF) an ongoing royalty to be paid to VirnetX. The number was downright stunning: 0.98 percent of revenue from iPhones and iPads sold in the US.

To no one’s surprise, Apple is fighting tooth and nail to avoid this outcome. A decision (PDF) published yesterday shows that one creative strategy that Apple tried to use went too far.

The decision puts VirnetX back in the driver’s seat, in a stronger position to collect a patent tax of nearly 1 percent on the most popular product produced by the world’s richest tech company. One estimate suggests that VirnetX could soon be collecting around $340 million from Apple annually unless VirnetX’s patents are vanquished on appeal.

You could argue with the use of the term patent troll here, but there’s no arguing with the financial impact of the decision here. This is an astonishing amount of money.