Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq: CY) today announced that the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has completed its re-examination of
Cypress’s U.S. Patent No. 7,142,477 and confirmed its validity. In
particular, the PTO confirmed without amendment both of the claims being
asserted by Cypress in the International Trade Commission’s (ITC) patent
infringement case against GSI Technology Inc., and allowed 64 new claims
added by Cypress during the re-examination.
“The Patent and Trademark Office’s re-examination review was
exhaustive,” said Dana Nazarian, executive vice president of Cypress’s
Memory Products Division. “The ‘477 patent was re-examined in light of
all of the prior art submitted by GSI in its re-examination request, as
well as prior art used by GSI in its defense of the ITC investigation.
The PTO ruling confirms what we’ve known all along – that the ‘477
patent is rock-solid.
“In a November 2011 press release, Lee-Lean Shu, the CEO of GSI, said
‘we are confident that completion of the re-examination will result in a
final rejection of these claims,’” Nazarian continued. “The PTO not only
reaffirmed the ‘477 patent, it allowed 64 new claims. It is now clear
that Mr. Shu’s prediction about the ‘477 patent was wrong.”
In June 2011, Cypress filed a complaint with the ITC alleging that GSI’s
SigmaQuad-II™, SigmaQuad-III™ and SigmaDDR™ SRAM families infringe four
Cypress SRAM patents. The case was later expanded to include GSI’s
standard synchronous and ZBT SRAMs, as well as a proprietary product
made by GSI for its largest customer. The complaint seeks an exclusion
order from the ITC that would prevent the importation of all infringing
GSI SRAMs. The trial has been completed, and the ITC is expected to rule
on this case in late July.
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® 1, PSoC 3 and PSoC 5
programmable system-on-chip families and derivatives, and 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, PCs and tablets. Cypress is also the world leader
in SRAM memories. 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 and the Cypress logo, PSoC, CapSense, TrueTouch and West Bridge
are registered trademarks of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. All other
trademarks are property of their owners.
