Western Digital owes $262 mln in hard-drive patent case, jury says

July 30 (Reuters) - Data-storage giant Western Digital (WDC.O) violated an Austrian physicist's patent rights and owes his company more than $262 million in damages, a jury in California federal court has determined.

The jury said on Friday, in a verdict made public on Tuesday, that Western Digital should pay Dieter Suess' MR Technologies more than $262.3 million for infringing two patents related to technology that increases the storage capacity of hard drives.

Western Digital said in a statement on Tuesday that it "will appeal the verdict as soon as possible." MRT attorney Marc Fenster of Russ August & Kabat told Reuters that the verdict validates that Suess' invention "really was a breakthrough in magnetic recording."

MRT sued Western Digital in 2022, alleging that several of its hard-drive products contained technology that infringed MRT patents related to data-storage improvements.、

"Without using these inventions, Western Digital would not be able to compete in the market," Fenster said during closing arguments on Friday, according to a court transcript.

Western Digital argued that its technology worked differently from the patented inventions and that the patents were invalid.

"MRT's lawyers have given false credit, to a fairly magnificent extent, to Dr. Suess for the work of thousands of [Western Digital] engineers over decades and across the planet," Western Digital attorney Douglas Lumish of Latham & Watkins said during closing arguments.

The case is MR Technologies GmbH v. Western Digital Technologies Inc, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, No. 8:22-cv-01599.