Jury Rules on Corporate Control in Chip Patent Suit
A technology patent holder accused a major chipmaker of infringing three patents covering cache voltage scaling, memory operating voltage control, and clock speed management in processors, seeking damages, an injunction, and a finding of willful infringement. After years of litigation involving multiple consolidated actions and counterclaims challenging the patents' validity, a federal jury in the Western District of Texas returned a verdict centered not on the technical infringement questions but on a corporate ownership issue — whether an investment firm had controlled both the patent holder and an affiliated company after a specified date. The jury sided with the chipmaker on this threshold question, a finding that determined the outcome of the case.
