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Court Orders Marvell To Pay Carnegie Mellon $1.5B For Patent Infringement

Posted by Soulskill on from the enforced-endowments dept.

Lucas123 writes "A U.S. District Court has ruled that Marvell Technology must pay Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) $1.54B for infringing on two hard drive chip patents. Marvell was also ordered to pay interest at 0.14% annually, and 50 cents for each chip sold that uses the intellectual property. While Marvell did not comment on the case, CMU said it 'understands' that Marvell will again appeal the ruling and the school 'will look forward to the federal circuit court' upholding the lower court's ruling. The latest decision by a U.S. District Court in Western Pennsylvania ends for now a five-year legal battle between the two. In 2012, a jury found Marvell had violated CMU's patents, and the chip maker then appealed that ruling."

18 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. 1.5 Billion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ummm... what is a school going to do with 1.5 Billion dollars?

    1. Re:1.5 Billion? by c4320n · · Score: 2

      Their endowment is about $1.4 billion already; they ran a $1 billion dollar campaign as recently as 2003. I'm sure they would find numerous uses for it.

    2. Re:1.5 Billion? by demontechie · · Score: 3, Informative

      Since these proceeds will qualify as royalties, under CMU's Intelectual Property Policy the school will "only" get 750 million. The other half will go to the two inventors on the patents.

      And I'm sure they'll find something to do with it.

    3. Re:1.5 Billion? by mythosaz · · Score: 4, Informative

      You don't invent patents. You patent inventions. The patents list the inventors. The inventors [names] are ON the patents.

    4. Re:1.5 Billion? by mythosaz · · Score: 3, Funny

      Does CMU have a monospace to proportional project to donate to?

    5. Re: 1.5 Billion? by Wovel · · Score: 4, Funny

      Pretty pretentious for someone who is wrong...

    6. Re:1.5 Billion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You don't invent patents. You patent inventions.

      Maybe that's how it works in soviet Russia, but here in America you can invent a patent on just about anything. The more obvious the better.

  2. Isn't that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lower the student fee?

    *laughs*

    1. Re:Isn't that obvious? by rogoshen1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      build another admin building with a level opulence that would make a Saudi prince feel like a tent dwelling nomad -- duh. :)

    2. Re:Isn't that obvious? by Bryan+Ischo · · Score: 2

      I graduated from CMU in 1994 with a Math/CS degree. I went back there this spring with some college friends for the first time in about 20 years.

      There are alot of new buildings, and they are ridiculously opulent compared to what we had. Instead of the bare concrete corridors of Wean Hall (which they've actually tiled and put drop ceilings in sometime in the past 20 years - way to spoil a mood!) students now walk through gleaming glass and natural wood interiors.

      I must say it all seems about 1,000 more cushy than we ever had it, and CMU lost a little of its stark barrenness in the process. As an old timer I lament that but I can certainly see how it makes the place more comfortable and attractive to the young-uns.

      I expect that the same is true on many campuses in the USA, perhaps especially the CS powerhouses. I live maybe 20 miles from Stanford now and although I haven't been on their campus in maybe 15 years I have heard that there has been tons of development there as well (probably more than CMU given how ungodly rich Stanford is).

      I haven't been to MIT since 1993 maybe but I expect they also have had a glut of fancy new buildings in the past 20 years.

    3. Re:Isn't that obvious? by Christopher_G_Lewis · · Score: 2

      They could give out USB sticks instead of 3 1/2" floppies...

      --
      www.christopherlewis.com
  3. 0.14% Interest? by CycleMan · · Score: 2

    Does this mean that if Marvell delays paying CMU for 50 years, they'll only pay an additional 7%? Compared to the rate of inflation, that's a marvelous deal.

    1. Re:0.14% Interest? by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Informative

      I was also surprised by that, but looks like it's mechanically computed based on T-bill rates. The full opinion is here (pdf).

      The opinion cites (on p. 47) 28 U.S. 1961, which says:

      interest shall be calculated from the date of the entry of the judgment, at a rate equal to the weekly average 1-year constant maturity Treasury yield, as published by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, for the calendar week preceding the date of the judgment

      And the 1-year T-bill rate is indeed somewhere around that.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  4. Re:Good guys and bad guys by demontechie · · Score: 5, Informative

    In fact, they will. CMU's IP Policy is quite clear on this matter. The inventors will get 50% of the proceeds.

  5. Re:Taxpayer subsidized? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Calm down, they're a private university. You could've google/wikipedia that before flying off the handle.

  6. Re:wow by gnupun · · Score: 2

    Yes, $1.5B is quite big. Did Marvell make that much profit selling just the infringing chip? How exactly are damages calculated?

  7. Re:wow by demontechie · · Score: 4, Informative
    Briefly from CMU's FAQ:

    The size of the award was based on an analysis by Catharine M. Lawton, an intellectual property damages expert who testified on behalf of CMU during the trial along with CMU's technical and industry experts. Ms. Lawton applied several commonly used and court approved methods of determining an appropriate royalty for Marvell's infringement in patent cases. Ms. Lawton's analysis rested on a comparison of Marvell's business and economic circumstances both before and after it started to infringe. Her opinion and application of these accepted methods were based on a detailed analysis of the facts and financial records in the case, as well as the testimony of Dr. Steven McLaughlin, CMU's digital signal processing expert, and Dr. Chris Bajorek, CMU's expert in the hard disk drive industry.

    Marvell earned an average revenue of $4.42 per chip and made an average operating profit of $2.16 for each of the more than 2 billion chips sold over more than a decade. Based upon her analysis of all the facts, Ms. Lawton determined that the proper value of the CMU invention was $.50 per chip.

  8. Re:wow by demontechie · · Score: 4, Informative

    You should really just read the whole FAQ.

    Basically Marvell desperately need the invention after trying and failing to come up with something that could do the same thing. CMU offered to license it to them. They declined, and then used it anyway. It completely turned around their drive business. So, only 25% of the profits for willful infringement of critical technology that they could have licensed for much less if they'd played fair back in the day doesn't really seem too bad to me.