Intel says it plans to appeal the verdict, which it says is “one of many examples that show the US patent system needs urgent reform.”
On Tuesday, a Federal Jury in Texas found Intel Corp infringed a VLSI patent for computer chips and ordered the company to pay $948.8 million to VLSI Technology LLC.
During the six-day trial, VLSI, a patent-holding company associated with Fortress Investment Group of SoftBank Group, argued Intel’s Cascade Lake and Skylake microprocessors violated its patent pertaining to data processing efficiency.
An Intel spokesperson said the company “strongly disagrees” with the verdict and plans to appeal, and that the case is “one example of many that shows the US patent system is in urgent need of reform.”
VLSI’s law firm declined to comment on the verdict.
Last March VLSI won a nearly $2.2 billion (roughly Rs. 18,000 crore) verdict from Intel in a separate Texas trial over different chip patents, which Intel has appealed. VLSI lost another related patent trial against Intel the following month.
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VLSI bought the patent in the latest trial from Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors NV.
An attorney for VLSI said at trial that Intel’s chips cause “millions and millions of infringements per second.” The jury awarded the company the full amount of damages it requested.
A lawyer for Mountain View, California-based Intel said during the trial that the company’s engineers developed its innovations independently and that its modern microprocessors would not work with VLSI’s outdated technology.
Two other patent cases brought by VLSI against Intel are still pending in Northern California and Delaware. A trial in the California case is set to begin in 2024.