(Reuters) - A federal jury on Wednesday found that Marvell Technology Group infringed two patents held by Carnegie Mellon University, and ordered the chipmaker to pay $1.17 billion in damages.
The award is one of the largest by a jury in a U.S. patent case, and is nearly twice Marvell's profit in its latest fiscal year. It followed a month-long trial in the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, the home of Carnegie Mellon.
Jurors also found that Marvell's patent infringement was willful. This could enable the trial judge, Nora Barry Fischer, to award triple damages, a sum close to the $3.96 billion market value of Marvell, whose chips are used for reading and writing data on hard disk drives.
Shares of Marvell fell 10.3 percent on Wednesday, closing down 85 cents at $7.40 on the Nasdaq.
Marvell and its law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The company had argued that it had acted in good faith, and the Carnegie Mellon patents were invalid. In a November 29 regulatory filing, Marvell said it intended to litigate vigorously in any potential appeal if it lost at trial.
Carnegie Mellon had accused Marvell of infringing patents used in technology for hard disk drive circuits to read data from high-speed magnetic disks, according to a statement from the university's law firm, K&L Gates.
The law firm said the patents related to systems and methods developed by Carnegie Mellon Professor Jose Moura and a doctoral student, Aleksandar Kavcic, who is now a professor at the University of Hawaii.
Through its verdict, the jury found that Marvell had sold billions of chips incorporating the technology without being licensed to do so, K&L Gates said.
Marvell is based in Hamilton, Bermuda. Its U.S. operating unit Marvell Semiconductor Inc is based in Santa Clara, California, and was also a defendant in the case.
The company posted a $615.1 million profit on net revenue of $3.39 billion in its most recent fiscal year, which ended on January 28. It counts Western Digital Corp and Seagate Technology Plc among its largest customers.
The trial judge set a May 1, 2013, hearing to consider a final judgment in the case, court records show.
The case is Carnegie Mellon University v. Marvell Technology Group Ltd et al, U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania, No. 09-00290.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Himank Sharma in Bangalore; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Leslie Adler, Phil Berlowitz and Andrew Hay)
Blog List
-
Kaley Cuoco Shows Off Fit Physique In Skin-Revealing Yoga Outfit - By Suzy Byrne Kaley Cuoco leaving yoga class in L.A. on Monday. (X17online.com)Kaley Cuoco gave new meaning to hot yoga on Monday when she emerged from cla...10 years ago
Pageviews
33,984
Popular Posts
-
In a news conference today (Dec. 21), National Rifle Association Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre blamed ...
-
Mashable's Anita Li contributed to this report from Toronto. Research in Motion , maker of the once-treasured but now beleaguered BlackB...
-
HONOLULU (AP) The Hawaii state Senate passed the so-called Steven Tyler Act Tuesday, a bill that seeks to protect celebrities from overeager...
-
Tonight Doctor Who fans get to gorge on their annual Christmas fix -- a full-length special episode the series has produced every year for ...
-
1. Eiffel Tower - Paris, France When Apple Maps launched in September, there was a funny picture of the Eiffel Tower looki...
-
For iPhone users, Google Maps is back. The revamped app, launched last week , is being downloaded in the tens of millions . As a resu...
-
As any fan of Doctor Who knows, the title character's ship does some pretty incredible things even when it's not traveling through ...
-
A jury in California has determined that Best Buy ( BBY ) must pay $22 million in damages for improper use of another companys trade secre...
-
Nintendo Wii U I remember it still people flipped out about the Nintendo ( NTDOY ) Wii . Yes, its name was mocked for a while, but there wa...
-
SINGAPORE (AP) A young Indian woman who was gang-raped and severely beaten on a bus died Saturday at a Singapore hospital, after her horri...