IEPER, Belgium, May 20, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 18th, 2010 the Regional Court of Dusseldorf, which is competent to rule on
patent infringement but not on patent validity, issued a first
determination in favor of austriamicrosystems in the patent
infringement lawsuit against Melexis (for your reference see also
our press release dated March 16,
2009). This ruling applies to the sales of the Melexis part
number MLX90316 in Germany.
Melexis remains confident in its initial position: The MLX90316
product results from wholly owned proprietary patented technology
and differentiates by many means, especially the basic principle,
from the austriamicrosystems' patent.
Melexis will review the grounds for the judgment and will lodge
an appeal against it with the Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf. Melexis is convinced that its
attacked product does not infringe the austriamicrosystems' patent
and that the Regional Court ruled incorrectly.
In March 2009, Melexis initiated a
claim to the Federal Patent Court in Munich, the only competent German Court for judging the patent validity.
Melexis remains confident that this claim will demonstrate prior
art and thus will invalidate the austriamicrosystems' patent. The
Federal Patent Court has scheduled a hearing on this nullity action
for December 2010.
More information can be found at http://www.melexis.com
Contact notes for Editors
Rik Moens - Marketing & Communications Europe
rmo@melexis.com
+32-13-670-780