Micron Technology of Chipmaker owes computer memory maker Netlist $445 million in damages for patent infringement of Netlist’s high-performance computer memory module technology, a US jury said on Thursday.
The case, 2:22-cv-00294, was heard in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. Two patents were involved, the ‘417, where a jury awarded Netlist $20 million, and the ‘912 patent, with $425 million in damages.
In addition, the jury found that Micron willfully infringed the ‘912 and ‘417 patents. Such a willful violation means that the court can increase the damages up to three times up to $1.34 billion.
“The ‘912 patent refers to using sequence factors in long-range DIMMs (LRDIMMs). Such DIMMs can have four classes or memory blocks, and the patent describes the IP logically representing LRDIMM as only two classes, which strongly exceeds the number of system memory controller maximum values suing Diablo Technology, Google, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix for patent infringement and violation of license or development agreement.
It sued Google in 2009 for patent 912 for infringement and is also involved in a similar lawsuit with Samsung, the Netlist-Samsung case involving five Netlist patents. This was due to Samsung supplying Google with allegedly infringing modules.
In the Federal District Court for the Central District of California, a jury ruled against Samsung, finding that Samsung violated a joint development and licensing agreement with Netlist that the two companies signed in November 2015. On a similar recall request, Netlist sued SK Hynix for patent infringement and won $40 million in damages and a licensing and supply agreement in 2021.
The jury also found that Micron willfully infringed the patents, which could result in the judge potentially trebling the damages. Micron representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision. “We are grateful for the jury’s service and recognition of the importance of Netlist’s innovations,” Netlist attorney Jason Sheasby said in a statement.
Netlist won a $303 million judgment against Samsung in the same court last year in a dispute over patents on high-performance computer memories.
Shares of Boise, Idaho-based Micron have soared this year on demand for chips used to power artificial intelligence technology. Irvine, California-based Netlist sued Micron in 2022, alleging that three of its lines of solid-state memory modules infringed its patents.
Netlist DDR4 DDIM
Netlist DIMMs
History
This agreement between Netlist and SK Hynix means that all legal disputes have ended. It was a long journey. The dispute began in 2016 when Netlist filed a patent infringement lawsuit against SK Hynix in the US for LRDIMMs and RDIMMs. to the International Trade Commission (ITC).
This dispute began in 2016 and took five years to resolve. Judges in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas agreed with Netlist that Micron’s semiconductor memory products infringe two of Netlist’s patents related to improving the capacity and performance of memory modules.
It was brought up again in 2017. The original ITC rulings went against Netlist anyway, but it continued. Netlist also appeared before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In October 2019, the ITC entered a preliminary ruling that SK Hynix infringed certain Netlist memory module patents. and set April 7, 2020, as the deadline to complete the investigation and make a final judgment.
In March 2020, Netlist filed a new patent infringement lawsuit against SK Hynix in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, again citing RDIMM and LRDIMM memory products.
Micron denied the allegations and raised several defenses, including claims that the patents were invalid. A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office court invalidated one patent in April, which could ultimately reduce the size of the judgment.
