SiliconBeat

Opti, a former maker of semiconductors that now makes its living licensing its intellectual property, said in a press release Friday that the jury from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled in its favor in the patent infringement trial between it and Apple related to its patent entitled Read the rest of this entry »

Late Friday afternoon, March 6, Sanmina-SCI filed details of a preliminary settlement reached last month between a group of shareholders who had sued the company and several of its current and former executives and members of its board over the electronic manufacturer’s past stock option practices.

The deal, subject to final approval at a hearing in San Jose May 1, calls for changes in the way the company grants options along with steps to being taken by several individual defendants, including the repricing and/or forfeiture of previous options grants and outright cash payments to the company.

The company also agreed to pay Read the rest of this entry »

Tivo got its $104,600,472 payment from Echostar, now known as Dish Network, over violation of a patent held by TiVo involving digital video recorders, according to a filing it made today with the SEC. The judgement included $74 million in initial damages awarded by the United States District Court covering the period through Sept. 8, 2006, plus related interest through Wednesday, the day TiVo check arrived.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court refused to disturb Read the rest of this entry »

Quantum, the San Jose storage firm, and Riverbed Technology, a San Francisco supplier of wide-area data service tools, settled patent litigation between them Tuesday. In exchange for an $11 million payment to Quantum, both companies entered into a “perpetual covenant not to sue” one another or their affiliates over patents related to “data de-duplication” over the next five years, according to an SEC filing.

Quantum filed suit against Riverbed in October 2007, and Riverbed filed a countersuit a month later. As part of the settlement announced Wednesday, both companies released each other from any and all claims in the matter.

Immersion will pay a $20.75 million one-time payment to Microsoft to settle breach-of-contract charges the software giant brought against the San Jose developer and licensor of touch feedback technology in June 2007.

Microsoft alleged that Immersion breached a sub-license agreement executed in connection with the settlement in 2003 of Immersion’s claims of patent infringement against Microsoft in Immersion v. Microsoft, Sony. Microsoft maintained it was entitled to Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, Sigma Designs filed a settlement it has reached of litigation filed against it over claims of stock option backdating, which the company completely denies. Then why is it settling?

“Defendants are entering into this Stipulation solely because the proposed settlement would eliminate the burden and expense of further litigation, and without admitting any wrongdoing or liability whatsoever.”

The agreement, which is subject to court approval, includes the cancellation of an option granted to Sigma’s chief executive in January for Read the rest of this entry »