Intel Told to Pay $2.18 Billion After Losing Patent Trial
- Intel had claimed royalty demands of VLSI were ‘outrageous’
- NXP would get a share of any damage award, Intel lawyer said
Intel Corp. was told to pay VLSI Technology LLC $2.18 billion by a federal jury in Texas after losing a patent-infringement trial over technology related to chip-making, one of the largest patent-damages award in U.S. history. Intel pledged to appeal.
Intel infringed two patents owned by closely held VLSI, the jury in Waco, Texas, said Tuesday. The jury found $1.5 billion for infringement of one patent and $675 million for infringement of the second. The jury rejected Intel’s denial of infringing either of the patents and its argument that one patent was invalid because it claimed to cover work done by Intel engineers.
The patents had been owned by Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors Inc., which would get a cut of any damage award, Intel lawyer William Lee of WilmerHale told jurors in closing arguments Monday. VLSI, founded four years ago, has no products and its only potential revenue is this lawsuit, he said.
VLSI “took two patents off the shelf that hadn’t been used for 10 years and said, ‘We’d like $2 billion,”’ Lee told the jury. The “outrageous” demand by VLSI “would tax the true innovators.”
He had argued that VLSI was entitled to no more than $2.2 million.