Case Overview:
Marvell Technology Group, a Bermuda based chipmaker, has agreed to a settlement with Carnegie Mellon University for $750 million dollars and no royalty payments in a 7 year long dispute regarding two patents regarding "methods to improve accuracy in the detection of recorded data when certain types of errors are likely due to the recording medium and reading mechanism". Carnegie Mellon University has mentioned that the winnings from this settlement will be used to aid students.
Case Specifics:
There are two patents involved in error detection including 6,201,839 regarding a "Method and Apparatus for Correlation-Sensitive Adaptive Sequence Detection and 6,438,180, for " Soft and Hard Sequence Detection in ISI Memory Channels". After an initial royalty based agreement totalling around a billion dollars, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reduced the award to $278 million in addition to setting "a new trial to determine whether certain chips were finally sold in the U.S."
Long dispute and settlements
After this 7 year long dispute, it is likely that the university or chipmaker simply wanted to settle and move in regarding this case. In addition, the royalty agreement may have favored Carnegie Mellon in this case, and Marvel may have been weary if the new trial would have required a more generous award.
Sources:
- http://www.cio.com/article/3034715/marvell-carnegie-mellon-settle-patent-dispute-over-hard-drive-chips.html
Hey Sid,
ReplyDeleteI also wrote about a case that incorporated a university. In my case, the university was attempting to file and attain a patent, but they were still being fought by an external company who brought the claim to the attention of the PTAB. What I found interesting in you case is that the University was who was suing. The few cases which I have read that included Universities, were all regarding the university being sued. Good find and good overview.