Last week, a Western District of Texas Jury entered a $2.18 billion dollar patent infringement verdict, one of the largest ever awarded in U.S. district court, in VLSI Technology LLC v. Intel Corporation.
In the case, VLSI Technology sued Intel Corp for infringement in April 2019 asserting three patents against Intel processors, but only two brought to the jury trial. The two patents were U.S. Pat. No. 7,523,373 for Minimum Memory Operating Voltage Technique and U.S. Pat. No. 7,725,759 for System and Method of Managing Clock Speed in an Electronic Device. The ‘373 patent netted VLSI a $1.5 billion verdict, while the ‘759 patent landed a $675 million sum from the jury.
Intel’s attempts to invalidate the patents all failed, leaving them liable for the products. This includes a directed question on whether Intel’s Yonah Processor alone anticipated the ‘759 patent, where the jury rejected the allegation, affirming the patents’ validity.
The damages will only encourage Intel in their fight against the U.S.P.T.O. for discretionary denials of their IPR petitions at the PTAB due to the advanced stage of the WDTX case, despite being filed within the one year filing deadline for accused infringers. The multinational tech firm is currently appealing the practice of discretionary denials in the Federal Circuit along with Apple, Cisco, and Google.
The Federal Circuit ruling will be heard, but in the meantime this ruling is yet another sign of the growing strength of patents in the Unites States.
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