Judge Rules One Patent Sufficient to Proceed
Santa Clara, Calif. –– February 10, 2011 –– Kilopass Technology Inc., a leading provider of semiconductor logic non-volatile memory (NVM) intellectual property (IP), today announced the U.S. District Court has denied Sidense motion to delay Kilopass’ lawsuit pending U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) reexamination of all three Kilopass U.S. Patents (No. 6,856,540, No. 6,777,757, and No. 6,940,751). The decision puts an end to Sidense’s latest delay tactic and compels them to address the real issue in the case, patent infringement.
U.S. District Court Judge Illston wrote in her eight-page decision: “(T)he PTO’s initial rejections of two of the patents’ claims and the proffered statistics do not have as much probative value as defendant argues. . . . Furthermore, the patent infringement claims will only be finally resolved if the PTO denies all of the claims in all three of the patents." (page 4). Earlier this month, the USPTO validated all claims in Kilopass’ 1T Anti-Fuse U.S. Patent No. 6,940,751.
“We are pleased with the district court ruling in this case that began nine months ago,†says Lee Cleveland, vice president of engineering at Kilopass. “Now, we can make real progress in the discovery phase of the trial. The decision ensures the liability documents our legal counsel requested in discovery but Sidense has withheld will now be forthcoming. But more important, with the district court case underway, customers’ concerns raised by this litigation will be put to rest.â€
About Kilopass
Kilopass Technology, Inc., a leading supplier of embedded NVM intellectual property, leverages standard logic CMOS processes to deliver one-time programmable (OTP) memory. With 58 patents granted or pending and more than 800,000 wafers shipped from a dozen foundries and Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDM), Kilopass has more than 100 customers in applications ranging from storage of firmware and security codes to calibration data and other application-critical information. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. For more information, visit www.kilopass.com or email info@kilopass.com.