Marvell Technology Group Ltd received a jury verdict of $1.17 billion in a case in which it was found that the company infringed the intellectual property of Carnegie Mellon University. Marvell subsequently countered, asking a federal judge to cut the award by about $620 million on the basis that the university delayed its lawsuit to an unreasonable degree.

IBM filed more U.S. patents than any other company in 2013, marking the 21st straight year the company has taken this honor, according to Bloomberg. The company's 6,809 patents in 2013 also created an annual record. More than 31 percent of these came from overseas, as IBM has inventors in 41 countries. The company is moving away from hardware into analytics and Web-based computing. It is also about to create a separate division for its cognitive technology named Watson, which will be able to analyze data and answer user queries about it, according to Bloomberg.

A company that manages intellectual property for twenty-five companies, including Apple, Amazon and Sony, has settled a lawsuit filed by Boston University alleging infringement of a professor's patent for producing blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs), according to university news source BU Today. The dollar amounts in the settlement were not disclosed. The settlement itself was negotiated with RPX, a firm that manages intellectual property for corporate entities through acquiring companies' patent rights. RPX will pay BU the undisclosed sum, and all members of RPX will be able to use the technology. Firms in litigation with BU that are not members of RPX will continue to be the subject of lawsuits.

Arizona State University received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to create the Pracademic Centre of Excellence in Technology Transfer. The PACE/T2, as it will be known, will be a collaboration between ASU's own tech transfer unit Arizona Enterprises, the university's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group, Security and Defense Systems Initiative and the ASU W.P. Carey School of Business.

On Jan. 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled Google did not infringe a patent owned by Google's Motorola Mobility unit related to mobile-phone technology, according to Bloomberg. The ruling, which is available online, underscores a victory already won by Apple at the U.S. International Trade Commission, according to Bloomberg.

North Carolina State University's Office of Technology Transfer, which has commercialized more than 400 products to date, has decided to open an office suite at HQ Raleigh, which is a shared office space provider for entrepreneurs. NCSU's goal with this move is to create meaningful links between its students and staff and the local startup community. Members of HQ Raleigh will be able to access NCSU's advice on intellectual property technology transfers, as well as counsel on research and innovation generally.

A recent white paper from the United States Postal Service inspector general reports the organization has no formal intellectual property management strategy. External consultants ipCapital Group reviewed the current intellectual property procedures at the USPS and found it has no process in place for patenting its inventions, and many of the organization's inventors simply do not know which new ideas they should patent.

The government sequester and shutdown did not adversely impact the progress of awarding patents in the U.S. Nor did the necessary work that went into implementing procedures of the America Invents Act like the first-to-invent designation and the post-issuance reviews. Rather than being slowed by any of these factors, the U.S. Patent Office awarded more patents than ever in 2013, according to Patently-O. The preliminary figure for 2013 is 277,861 patents issued in total, an increase of 10 percent year-over-year.

Google Inc. recently requested a federal court to declare it had not infringed two patents held by the University of California and its licensee Eolas Technologies. The patents in question were both issued in December 2011, and Eolas sent a demand letter to Google last month claiming that the company was infringing these patents, according to Bloomberg.

Microsoft Corp. has made a $7.5 billion bid to take over Nokia Oyj's handset operations. Chinese mobile-phone makers Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. asked China's Ministry of Commerce to ensure Microsoft does not increase patent licensing fees on wireless technology, according to two government officials who asked not to be named. The ministry is now conducting an anti-monopoly review of the deal, according to Bloomberg.