It appears that Intel has to pay $2.2 billion in damages after a patent trial loss to VLSI, as reported by SeekingAlpha. A federal jury in Waco, Texas ruled that Intel violated two patents of Fortress Investment Group’s VLSI Technology and must pay $2.18B in damages, for violating two of its patents.
VLSI Technology claims in its lawsuit that officials at Intel Corp., pirated technology concepts from two of its patents to benefit its company without properly compensating VLSI.
Damages for one patent violation amounts to $1.5 billion, while the other patent totals $675 million, and the patents are related to data processing system technology that VLSI alleges Intel used in certain processors.
Apart from that, VLSI has sued Intel with six other alleged patent violations, in California, Delaware, Texas, and other states.
Intel and Apple have previously filed an antitrust suit against VLSI where Intel said VLSI was seeking billions in damages across its various patent suits. Attorney Morgan Chu, of Los Angeles, is representing VLSI, and Bill Lee of Boston is representing Intel in the filing.
According to Waco Tribune-Herald, the trial will center around two patents held by VLSI, one that will be referred to as “373,” chips that found a way to save computer power, and a method to reduce the memory’s minimum operating voltage, and “759,” which increased the speed of the CPU (i.e. clock speed management).
VSLI, which stands for Very Large Scale Integration, later merged with a company called NXP, which developed the two patents.
However, the patents originated from Freescale Semiconductor Inc. and SigmaTel Inc., both of which were purchased by NXP Semiconductors afterwards.
“Intel incorporated NXP’s inventions into its own chips and has not paid reasonable royalties for the use of those inventions,” Attorney Morgan Chu said. “That basically is what this case is all about. We are here because the law provides a remedy for patent infringement.”
According to the Waco Tribune Herald report, Bill Lee, Intel’s lead attorney, on the other hand has denied the allegations.
Lee said there was no infringement on either patent and that one of the patents is invalid because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office failed to detect that the technology in dispute already existed at Intel (when the patent was issued).
He said Intel doesn’t use technology from either of the patents. “It never has, and more importantly, nobody ever has. Intel had a better, more robust design. They are better.”
Intel is seeking help from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to challenge VLSI. It remains to be seen how this matter is settled in the court. According to Intel’s lawyer, VLSI has no products and its only potential revenue is this lawsuit, and the company appears to be a patent troll.
Stay tuned for more tech news!
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