SAN FRANCISCO — Chip designer Donald Stern thought he’d found the holy grail of memory technology. But after he disclosed his designs for an inductive storage capacitor to Mitsubishi, they started showing up in “SuperSRAM” chips produced by a Mitsubishi-Hitachi joint venture.
On Tuesday the Sixth District Court of Appeal upheld a verdict against Mitsubishi Electric Inc. for breaching a nondisclosure agreement, but agreed with Superior Court Judge Kenneth Barnum that the $123 million award was excessive.
