Court orders Apple to pay OPTi $21.7m in patent suit
updated 01:55 pm EST, Fri December 4, 2009
Infringement suit reaches final judgment
The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has issued a final judgment in the patent infringement lawsuit between OPTi and Apple, ordering the Mac maker to pay a total of $21.7 million in damages and pre-judgment interest. The patents involve technology related to "predictive snooping" of cache memory for relaying information between a CPU and other components.
Although Apple was found to be guilty of violating the patent claims, the court did not view the actions as willful infringement. The decision potentially saves Apple from having to pay significantly higher damages, including reimbursement of attorney fees.
OPTi ceased its manufacturing and distribution operations several years ago. The company intends to continue pursuing patent infringement litigation and establishing licensing agreements for its intellectual property.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2009
Apple infringement?
Since Intel makes the processors, and various other companies make the other chips including RAM, and especially since Intel wrote the instructions in the processor that caches memory, how is this Apple's infringement?