The Regents of the University of Minnesota filed this patent infringement action on February 7, 2018, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Case No. 5:18-cv-00821), asserting US5859601A against LSI Corporation and co-defendant Avago Technologies U.S. Inc. The asserted patent covers maximum transition run (MTR) encoding and decoding methods used in magnetic recording read channels — technology embedded in LSI’s RC5101, RC5110, and RC5200 Spyder ELP product families, as well as TrueStore read-channel simulation tools.

After 2,686 days of litigation, the parties executed a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice on June 16, 2025, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41. The settlement terms are confidential and not reflected in the public record. Dismissal with prejudice means the University of Minnesota cannot re-file the same infringement claims against LSI or Avago on the same patent for the same accused products. Each party agreed to bear its own legal fees and costs, suggesting neither side extracted an explicit fee-shifting concession — a common feature of negotiated exits.

A litigation span of over seven years is notable even for complex semiconductor patent disputes, suggesting the parties navigated significant procedural hurdles — potentially including claim construction, inter partes review proceedings, and damages-related discovery — before reaching resolution. The private settlement structure means the financial terms, licensing scope, and any ongoing royalty obligations remain undisclosed. Whether the University secured a royalty stream or a lump-sum payment, and whether any cross-licensing was involved, cannot be determined from the public docket.