Judge upholds CMU’s $1.17B patent verdict

There’s no need for a new trial over a $1.17 billion patent infringement verdict that Carnegie Mellon University won last year against a California technology firm, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer said Marvell Technology Group didn’t present convincing arguments for overturning the award or ordering a new trial in a case over semiconductor chips that used technology developed by a CMU professor and student. "Marvell is in its current predicament because it deliberately undertook a series of strategic risks," Fischer wrote, adding that "Marvell’s bad facts and even worse litigation strategy were fatal to its cause." In December 2012 a jury awarded the Pittsburgh-based university more than $1 billion based on a royalty of 50 cents per semiconductor for Marvell chips that used the Carnegie Mellon-related technology. More than 2 billion chips were produced, and evidence presented at the trial showed that Santa Clara, Calif.-based Marvell made an operating profit of $5 billion from their sale.