Carnegie Mellon University and Marvell Technology Group have been locked over alleged infringement of certain patents owned by the former. A jury has now weighed in rather heavily in favor of Carnegie University, awarding the university a whopping $1.7 billion in damages.

The whole point of contention between the two entities began when Marvell made use of chips in high-speed computer hard drives – the chips enabled accurate reading of data from the drives. The technology was conceived by Carnegie University and it alleged that Marvell used it without permission.

The legal tussle between the duo started back in 2009 and has dragged on to the present day. Even though the jury has ruled the verdict in favor of the Carnegie University, the dispute is far from over. What is rather interesting about the $1.7 billion award is that it is one of the largest in the history of patent disputes.

Nonetheless, very few expect the verdict to stand. Marvell has all plans of fighting off the verdict by appealing against it. The company intends to dispute the method through which Carnegie University calculated the damages of alleged patent infringement.

Carnegie University, on the other hand, argues that since Marvell has sold a total of 2.34 billion chips to Western Digital over the recent years, the amount of the damages which jury has asked Marvell to pay are fair enough. In a statement it recently released, the University stated, “We did not undertake this suit lightly and once we undertook it we did not pursue it lightly.”

Source: WSJ

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