Cypress Reports Break Down of Talks Regarding Alleged GSI Patent Infringements
October 03 2011 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq:CY) today said that
negotiations with GSI Technology, Inc. regarding the alleged
infringement of Cypress’s SRAM patents by GSI have ended without a
resolution. In June, Cypress filed a complaint with the
International Trade Commission alleging infringement by GSI of four
of its SRAM patents. The complaint seeks an exclusion order from
the ITC that would prevent the importation of all infringing GSI
SRAMs. The ITC requires disputing companies to meet three times
before the trial. Cypress’s comments came in the wake of the first
of these meetings.
“Talks between Cypress and GSI broke off last week without any
progress,” Cypress president and CEO T.J. Rodgers said in an
extended statement. “Nothing short of structural change – an
agreement by GSI management to immediately stop selling products
that infringe on Cypress’s intellectual property – will enable us
to get this matter settled.
“GSI’s investors, and its board of directors, must be aware that
GSI’s revenue stream is at serious risk,” Rodgers said. “The ITC
trial is scheduled to begin in mid-2012. It is important to note
that the ITC cannot award damages. If the ITC rules that GSI has
used infringing IP, its only remedy is an exclusion order – an
immediate ban on the importation of products that contain
infringing GSI technology into the U.S. Such a ban would have an
immediate and traumatic impact on GSI and its customers that use
the infringing technology.”
“A substantial portion of GSI’s revenue comes from SRAM products
that infringe multiple Cypress memory cell, circuit and
architectural patents,” said Dana Nazarian, executive vice
president of Cypress’s Memory Products Division. “The infringement,
we will prove, is broad, deliberate and blatant.”
Cypress also filed a complaint with the Minnesota District Court
in March, alleging that GSI’s SigmaQuad-II™, SigmaQuad-III™ and
SigmaDDR™ SRAMs infringe on its SRAM patents. Cypress filed its ITC
complaint after it became clear that GSI was not willing to discuss
a meaningful, structural settlement of the district court case. The
ITC process required Cypress to name known importers and users of
the alleged infringing GSI products. This list, which originally
contained 10 companies, has recently been reduced to eight.
“Cypress’s first core value, found on every floor of every
Cypress building worldwide, is that we thrive on competing against
the world’s best,” Rodgers said. “I was shocked to find out that
GSI, a very strong competitor of ours, had built their portfolio of
SigmaQuadTM products on Cypress’s intellectual property. In effect,
they pilfered our IP in order to compete against us in the
marketplace, rather than spend the millions of dollars in R&D
required to build high-speed networking SRAMs.”
About Cypress
Cypress delivers high-performance, mixed-signal, programmable
solutions that provide customers with rapid time-to-market and
exceptional system value. Cypress offerings include the flagship
PSoC® programmable system-on-chip families and derivatives such as
PowerPSoC® solutions for high-voltage and LED lighting
applications, CapSense® touch sensing and TrueTouch® solutions for
touchscreens. Cypress is the world leader in USB controllers,
including the high-performance West Bridge® solution that enhances
connectivity and performance in multimedia handsets. Cypress is
also a leader in high-performance memories and programmable timing
devices. Cypress serves numerous markets including consumer, mobile
handsets, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial
and military. Cypress trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market
under the ticker symbol CY. Visit Cypress online at
www.cypress.com.
Cypress, the Cypress logo, PSoC, PowerPSoC, CapSense, TrueTouch
and West Bridge are registered trademarks of Cypress Semiconductor
Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their owners.
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