Intel waives $2.18 billion in compensation, and the US Patent Office declares two VLSI patents involved in the case invalid

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen Xiao Zhan for the clue delivery! CTOnews.com, June 15 (Xinhua)-- the US Patent Office (PTAB) declared a patent of VLSI Technology invalid this week, exempting Intel from a fine of $2.18 billion.

In March 2021, a federal court in Texas ruled that chipmaker Intel Corp. had infringed VLSI Technology patents and had to pay $2.18 billion in damages.

PTAB recently declared another key patent invalid after it declared one of the VLSI patents invalid in May this year.

One of the two patents was originally granted to Freescale in 2012 and the other to SigmaTel in 2010.

Freescale later acquired SigmaTel and was acquired by NXP in 2015. According to Bloomberg data, the two patents were only transferred to VLSI Technology LLC in 2019.

CTOnews.com Note: VLSI, a patent holding company owned by private equity firm Fortress Investment Group of the Softbank Corp. Group, found in a six-day trial that Intel's Cascade Lake and Skylake microprocessors infringed its patents covering data processing improvements that VLSI bought from Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductor.