3Com Wins $45 Million in Patent Suit Against Taiwanese Chipmaker

3Com of Marlborough, MA, said today that a federal jury in California awarded it $45.3 million in its patent infringement lawsuit against Realtek Semiconductor Corporation of Hsinchu, Taiwan.

3Com charged in the suit that Realtek’s network controller chips appropriated aspects of parallel processing technology 3Com developed for its own network interface devices. A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that Realtek had infringed on four 3Com patents, three of them willingly.

The company said it is pursuing a larger award as part of a final judgment in the case. “We are extremely pleased that the jury has found in favor of 3Com in this important case and recognized the damage caused to 3Com by Realtek’s willful actions,” 3Com executive vice president and chief administrative and legal officer Neal Goldman said in a press release issued today. “3Com has a very broad portfolio of networking technology patents and an active licensing program. We will continue to aggressively protect our valuable patents against any and all infringements.”

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/