Lexar announced that a jury awarded it more than $380 million for breach of fiduciary duty and theft of trade secrets and $82 million in punitive damages in its case against Toshiba.
Lexar is also seeking an injunction to block the sale of Toshiba’s large and small block NAND flash chips, and CompactFlash, Secure Digital and xD memory cards in the United States. The length of the injunction will be determined by the Court in a hearing that Lexar expects to be held on April 13.
The verdict in the case before the Superior Court for the State of California, was the third largest intellectual-property payment in U.S. history and the largest in the state of California, Lexar said.
During the trial, Lexar accused Toshiba of entering into a partnership with the company to secure critical intellectual property regarding, among other things, flash-memory controllers. All the while, Lexar said, Toshiba was circulating Lexar’s trade secrets throughout the company and sharing them with Lexar’s archrival SanDisk. Toshiba later formed a joint venture with SanDisk.
Lexar is also engaged in a patent infringement case against Toshiba in Federal Court which is currently in the discovery phase.
Toshiba would not comment on the verdict.
