A jury in Newark, New Jersey has rejected many of the more colourful allegations made by Honeywell Inc against Minolta Camera Co over Honeywell’s autofocus chip patents, but nevertheless awarded the Minneapolis company $96m in damages against Minolta for infringement of two of the four patents: the jury decided that the Japanese company did not steal Honeywell’s technology and that it infringed the patents unwittingly; Honeywell had been looking for $174m in actual damages plus a punitive tripling.
