Opti sues Apple

A Silicon Valley company is suing Apple for using its patented technology in Macintosh computers.

OPTi filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on January 16 alleging that Apple violates three OPTi patents on what it calls "“Predictive Snooping of Cache Memory for Master-Initiated Accesses.”

OPTi says Apple uses its patented predictive snooping technology without permission in its desktop, notebook, and server computers and has asked for a jury trial to settle the dispute.

OPTi, of Mountain View, California, licenses its intellectual property to personal computer manufacturers and semiconductor device makers.

THEN TODAY APRIL, 24 OPTI won the case

Opti v. Apple in which the jury found that Apple willfully infringed Opti's patent, and that Apple had not shown by clear and convincing evidence that the patent was invalid either as anticipated or obvious. The jury set damages at $19,009,728.

Date: 04-24-2009

Case Style: OPTi, Inc. v. Apple, Inc.

Case Number: 2:07-cv-00021-CE

Judge: Charles Everingham

Court: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division

Plaintiff's Attorney: Sam Baxter, Jason Dodd Cassady, Gary Scott Kitchen, Kristi Jean Thomas and Carol S Butner, McKool Smith, Marshall, Texas; Michael L Brody, Taras Alexander Gracey, J Ethan McComb, Eric J Mersmann, Martin C. Robson, III, Alfredo Leopoldo Silva and Sarah J Frey, Winston & Strawn, Chicago, Illinois

Defendant's Attorney: Eric Albritton, Albritton Law Firm, Longview, Texas; Eric E. Bensen, Garden City, New York; Matthew J. Brigham, Benjamin Damstedt, Timothy S Teter, Thomas John Vigdal and Iain R Cunningham, Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, Palo Alto, California; Stephen E Edwards, Danny Lloyd Williams and Matthew Richard Rodgers, Williams Morgan & Amerson PC, Houston, Texas; Thomas C Mavrakakis, Wong Cabello Lutsch Rutherford & Brucculeri LLP, Palo Alto, California

Description: OPTi, Inc. sued Apple, Inc. on a patent infringement theory claiming that Defendant wrongfully used "predictive snooping" memory cashe technology designed to transfer information between a CPU and other components in the computers that it manufactured and sold to the public.

The defenses asserted by Apple are not available.

Outcome: Plaintiff's verdict for $19 million. ($19,009,728)