A US court judge has increased the amount to be paid by chip maker Marvell Technology Group in damages to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to about $1.5bn, for infringing two of its patents related to hard-disk, capping the trial launched back in 2009.
During the latest trial, the US District Judge Nora Barry Fischer and a Pittsburgh jury ruled that the increase in damages were practical since the university had shown sufficient facts to prove that Marvell had deliberately infringed its technology.
The fine, claimed to be one of the largest patent infringement compensation ever awarded, is 1.23 times more than the earlier $1.17 billion jury ruling from December 2012, with an additional $79.6m in damages for infringements, which were not considered that time.
"This award is sufficient to penalise Marvell for its egregious behaviour and to deter future infringement activities," Fischer said.
The lawsuit involved fundamental technology called, ‘Noise Predictive Detection’ in hard disc drive electronics, which would boost the accuracy with which hard disk drive circuits read data from high speed magnetic disks.
The university urged that about nine Marvell circuit devices incorporated its patented technology, with about 2.3 billion chips sold between 2003 and 2012.
