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11 August 2021PatentsAlex Baldwin

Judge Albright denies Intel re-trial of $2.2bn patent ruling

West Texas district court judge Alan Albright has denied Intel’s motion for a new trial after the court hit the chipmaker with a $2.2bn damages verdict for infringing two processor patents.

Intel’s motion was denied by Albright in the US District Court for the Western District (Waco) of Texas, according to a court docket update on Monday.

The original jury decision was handed down in March and was the largest patent damages award in US history, eclipsing an award handed down in 2020 ordering Cisco to pay $1.9 billion for infringing four patents.

VLSI Technology was awarded  $1.5 billion in damages for Intel’s infringement of US patent number 7,523,373 and $675 million for the infringement of US patent number 7,725,759.

This equated to approximately half of Intel’s profit for the quarter.

VLSI had accused Intel of willful infringement of the patent, but the jury disagreed, finding Intel liable for infringement but had not done so wilfully. If the jury had agreed, judge Albright would have been able to increase the final damages award up to three times.

This was just one of three patent suits levied against Intel by VLSI at the Waco court. In April, the jury shot down a separate dispute that claimed Intel infringed on another four patents, clearing it of having to pay $3.1 billion in damages.

VLSI was acquired by Philips Electronics in June 1999 and was incorporated into the company’s NXP Semiconductor spin-off branch.

The dispute between VLSI and Intel began in April 2019, when VLSI submitted a complaint to the Waco court claiming intel infringed its data processing patents.

It alleged that Intel’s Ivy Bridge computer processor line launched in 2012 used a method of low voltage optimisations that infringed claims of both the ‘373 and ‘759 patents.

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