Marvell to Pay $750 Million in Settlement With Carnegie Mellon
17 Februar 2016 - 11:30PM
Dow Jones News
Marvell Technology Group Ltd. has agreed to pay Carnegie Mellon
University $750 million to settle a patent dispute.
Last August, Marvell convinced a federal appeals court to
reverse most of a $1.54 billion damage award to Carnegie Mellon,
but the court affirmed that Marvell infringed the two patents at
issue, which cover technology related to computer disk drives.
The settlement announced Wednesday resolves all pending appeals.
Marvell added that its cash and short-term investments exceeded
$2.3 billion. Marvell had previously recorded about $388 million
for litigation reserves in fiscal 2016 related to Carnegie
Mellon.
Marvell was found guilty of infringing the patents in December
2012 by a federal jury, which set $1.17 billion in damages. A
federal judge increased the award to $1.54 billion, reflecting an
extension of the period covered by the award and a finding that
Marvell willfully infringed the patents.
The verdict became a cloud hanging over the company, which had
been fighting hard to have it reversed. It also raised opposition
from high-tech companies such as Microsoft Corp., Google Inc.,
Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Broadcom Corp., which filed
court papers attacking the size of the damage award.
A key issue in the case is whether royalty payments ordered by a
U.S. court should cover sales of products sold outside the country,
as the jury ruled. Marvell and its supporters argued that the
royalties should only apply to products sold in the U.S.
The appeals court struck down the finding of willful
infringement, while affirming the royalty fee set by the jury of 50
cents for each chip Marvell sold. It agreed with the companies,
however, that the royalties should only cover Marvell chips that
were imported or sold into the U.S.
Based on the jury's finding of the number of chips imported, the
court set the damage award at $278.4 million. But it concluded a
new trial was needed to settle the correct sale location of some
chips.
Write to Josh Beckerman at josh.beckerman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 17, 2016 17:15 ET (22:15 GMT)
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