Jury Hits Marvell With $1 Billion+ Fine Over CMU Patents 167
Dupple writes with news carried by the BBC of a gigantic tech-patent case that (seemingly for once) doesn't involve Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, or Google:
"'U.S. chipmaker Marvell Technology faces having to pay one of the biggest ever patent damage awards. A jury in Pittsburgh found the firm guilty of infringing two hard disk innovations owned by local university Carnegie Mellon.' Though the company claims that the CMU patents weren't valid because the university hadn't invented anything new, saying a Seagate patent of 14 months earlier described everything that the CMU patents do, the jury found that Marvell's chips infringed claim 4 of Patent No. 6,201,839 and claim 2 of Patent No. 6,438,180. "method and apparatus for correlation-sensitive adaptive sequence detection" and "soft and hard sequence detection in ISI memory channels.' 'It said Marvell should pay $1.17bn (£723m) in compensation — however that sum could be multiplied up to three times by the judge because the jury had also said the act had been "wilful." Marvell's shares fell more than 10%.'"
Re:Patent ware at the max ? (Score:0, Informative)
Maybe still not enough to trigger any reaction ?
Maybe not. But maybe this verdict is actually a valid one? Oh sorry, it's patents, it can only be litigation for the sake of pure evil...
We will soon live in a world without any privacy,
What does this have to do with patents?
paying for everything
I know you and others think that a world were everything is free is not only possible, but reasonable, but it does not work that way.
and where thinking is forbidden.
No one is stopping you from thinking. Certainly not patents. Unless of course you consider "thinking" == "producing and selling stuff"
I agree that software patents suck however.
Re:punishment (Score:3, Informative)
What's with this urge to punish? What has Marvell done that's so evil? Other than being a powerful US corporation, that is.
They made billions of dollars off the patents of others and didn't pay appropriately to the patent holders?
Re:Go Go Alma Mater (Score:5, Informative)
Did they just buy the patent? Nope - it was invented at CMU. Are they involved in lots of litigation? Nope - search for "CMU sues" and you come up with Central Michgan Univ, not CMU. Did they offer to license it on reasonable terms? Yes - Marvell refused.
Doesn't sound like a troll to me.
Re:Go Go Alma Mater (Score:5, Informative)
Are you full of shit? yes. [techdirt.com]http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121226/17582221493/patent-trolling-carnegie-mellon-wins-what-could-be-largest-patent-verdict-ever-12-billion.shtml [techdirt.com]
don't waste my time with your false flag troll. Was it invented at CMU? no, but thanks for trying. Was this about licensing? no. Is this going to stand under appeal? no. The fact that other patents cover the same thing guarantees that there is a 0% chance that this was independently invented anywhere in the world, let alone by CMU which is not Central Michigan University.
Re:Go Go Alma Mater (Score:5, Informative)
Its pretty clear that Techdirt didn't actually read the patents and just took Marvell's word that it covers the same thing. Read them.
Also, they are wrong that CMU didn't offer to license. They pursued a license for two years. Maybe its you who are the troll.