EU Trademark Office Rules That Quantum Research Group “Acted in Bad
Faith” in Its 2007 Registration of Cypress’s CapSense Mark
Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:CY) today announced that the European
Union’s trademark registry, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal
Market (OHIM), ruled that Quantum Research Group acted “contrary to
honest practices in commercial matters” by trying to “impede” Cypress’s
attempt to register its CapSense® trademark in the EU. The
OHIM declared Quantum’s registration of the CapSense mark in the EU
invalid and ordered the company to bear the costs incurred by Cypress in
its application to cancel Quantum’s trademark.
Until it was acquired last year by San Jose, Calif.-based Atmel Corp.,
Quantum was one of Cypress’s competitors in the market for capacitive
touch-sensing products. CapSense is the brand name and trademark of
Cypress’s industry-leading touch solution.
The OHIM further ruled that Quantum had prior knowledge of Cypress’s use
of the CapSense product name in the UK and other countries when Quantum
registered the mark in 2007. The OHIM described the Quantum tactic as a
“blocking” registration.
“What Quantum/Atmel couldn’t win with their technology in the
marketplace, they tried to obtain by unscrupulous means, manipulating
the trademark system to prevent Cypress from using its own
well-established commercial brand and superior intellectual property,”
said Cypress President and CEO T.J. Rodgers. “We applaud the court for
its decision, enforcing standards of common sense and fairness in the
resolution of this case.”
Cypress is the industry’s touch-sensing leader; its CapSense
touch-sensing solution has replaced 3.5 billion mechanical buttons in
mobile handsets, laptops, consumer electronics, white goods, automotive
applications, and virtually any system that has a mechanical button or
switch. The latest addition to Cypress’s touch-sensing portfolio, its
TrueTouch™ solution, allows customers to design end products with LCD
displays that incorporate gesture-based functions, including multi-touch
gesture and multi-touch all-point solutions (the ability to track up to
10 touches simultaneously). TrueTouch works with industrial materials
such as glass and plastics, giving customers maximum flexibility to
create stylish, innovative industrial designs.
CapSense and TrueTouch are based on Cypress’s PSoC®
programmable system-on-chip solution, a highly configurable architecture
for embedded control design, integrating configurable analog and digital
circuits with memory and an on-chip microcontroller. A single PSoC
device can integrate as many as 100 peripheral functions, saving
customers design time, board space and power consumption while improving
system quality and reducing system cost.
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 PSoC programmable system-on-chip,
USB controllers, general-purpose programmable clocks and memories.
Cypress also offers wired and wireless connectivity technologies ranging
from its CyFi™ Low-Power RF solution, to West Bridge®
and EZ-USB® FX2LP controllers that enhance connectivity and
performance in multimedia handsets. Cypress serves numerous markets
including consumer, computation, data communications, automotive, and
industrial. Cypress trades on the NYSE under the ticker symbol CY. Visit
Cypress online at www.cypress.com.
Cypress, the Cypress logo, CapSense, PSoC, West Bridge and EZ-USB are
registered trademarks, and TrueTouch and CyFi are trademarks of Cypress
Semiconductor Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of
their respective owners.
Cypress Public Relations
Joseph L. McCarthy, 408-943-2902
JMY@cypress.com
