After a seven-year legal brawl between two leading companies in the multibillion-dollar semiconductor industry, a federal jury in San Jose has decided that Altera Corp. infringed on two patents held by its main competitor, Xilinx Inc.
The verdict, after a six-week trial in U.S District Court Judge James Ware’s courtroom, sent ripples through the semiconductor industry, where the market for programmable logic devices was $2.6 billion in 1999.
With so much at stake, both companies hired top-notch legal talent. Keker & Van Nest partners Robert Van Nest, John Keker and Brian Ferrall litigated Xilinx’s case. "The case was hard-fought and well-tried on both sides, and we are pleased we won the jury’s verdict," Van Nest said.