Western Digital Escapes Half-Billion-Dollar Patent Liability

A federal judge in California erased a $550 million-plus award against Western Digital Corp., ruling a patent owner presented flawed evidence on its damages from the external hard drive maker’s patent infringement.

Judge James V. Selna of the US District for the Central District of California upheld a jury’s October finding that WD infringed a claim from a Spex Technologies Inc. patent but cut the award to “nominal damages in the amount of $1" in an order dated June 16 but and entered into the court docket Monday. He said Spex failed at trial to separate out the value ...