Intel ordered to cough up $2 billion in patent lawsuit

26 February 2021 News

A federal jury in Texas has ruled against Intel in a trial over patent infringements related to chip-making, brought against Intel by VLSI Technology. While Intel’s lawyer argued that VLSI was entitled to no more than $2,2 million, the jury concluded that some zeroes were missing from that number, and instead ordered Intel to pay $2,18 billion in damages, one of the largest patent-damages awards in US history.

VLSI has something of a convoluted past, having changed course, and ownership, over the years. One of the two patents in question was issued in 2010 to SigmaTel, which was bought by Freescale Semiconductor in 2008, and the other was issued in 2012 to Freescale, which was in turn bought by NXP Semiconductors in 2015. Both patents were transferred to VLSI in 2019.

NXP will receive a cut of any damages awarded, but Intel has vowed to appeal the ruling, saying in a statement that “Intel strongly disagrees with today’s jury verdict. We intend to appeal and are confident that we will prevail.”

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