Samsung Electronics was orderd to pay $400 million after a federal jury in Texas said it infringed a patent owned by the licensing arm of a South Korean university KAIST. The South Korean company pledged to appeal.

Qualcomm and GlobalFoundries also were found to have infringed the patent but weren't told to pay any damages to the licensing arm of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, one of South Korea's top research universities.

FinFet is a type of transistor that boosts performance and reduces power consumption for increasingly smaller chips. KAIST IP US, the university's licensing arm, claimed in its initial complaint that Samsung was dismissive of the FinFet research at first, believing it would be a fad. That all changed when rival Intel started licensing the invention and developing its own products, according to KAIST IP.

Samsung told the jury that it worked with the university to develop the technology and denied infringing the patent. It also challenged the validity of the patent.

Samsung's infringement was found to be intentional, meaning the judge could increase the damage award to as much as three times the amount set by the jury. The company said it was disappointed by the verdict.

"We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that is reasonable, including an appeal," Samsung said in a statement.