According to a ruling handed down by a federal jury in Texas – USA, Intel must pay 2.18 billion dollars to VLSI Technology for infringing two proprietary patents.

The microchip manufacturer must pay 1.5 billion dollars for the use of intellectual property without permission of one of the patents, while for the second one, the compensation amounts to 675 million dollars, according to the court decision.

More specifically, of the two patents that Intel infringed, one covers the fact of storing information on the chip’s minimum memory voltage in non-volatile memory, thus ensuring that the voltage is sufficiently high, and the other patent focuses on the alteration of clock frequencies as a technique to reduce the processor’s energy consumption.

It is important to highlight that this is one of the largest awards in the history of the United States in a trial of this nature.

Intel’s legal representatives, through a press release, expressed their total disagreement with the jury’s verdict, while emphasizing their intention to appeal, as they are confident that they will prevail.

This case has become controversial not only because of the high amount involved, but also because the aggrieved company is not another technology giant, it is a small startup founded four years ago, which has never sold or manufactured a single product.