U.S. District Judge Randall Rader overturned a previous jury decision when he ordered Hewlett-Packard to pay Cornell $53.5 million in a lawsuit that the University filed against the company for infringing Cornell’s patent on a data processing unit in January 2002. Despite the $53.5 million Cornell is due to receive, the University planned on receiving $184 million from the lawsuit following a jury’s decision in June 2008.

The dispute was over an innovative data processing unit — developed by a Cornell researcher in the late 1980’s — that was capable of performing multiple functions at once, unlike its predecessors. The processor, which was issued a patent in 1989, enabled computers to function faster and more effectively.