Kilopass Outlines its Infringement Case Against Sidense with Appellate Court

Update: Synopsys Expands DesignWare IP Portfolio with Acquisition of Kilopass Technology (Jan. 10, 2018)

Kilopass Confident of Favorable Ruling to Reverse Procedural and Legal Errors at US District Court, Particularly on Disavowal of Patent Claims

Santa Clara, Calif. – December 7, 2012 – Kilopass Technology Inc., a leading provider of semiconductor logic non-volatile memory (NVM) intellectual property (IP), today announced that it has filed the initial legal appeal brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Appellate Court”), outlining the procedural and legal errors in the U.S. District Court’s decision on Summary Judgment to dismiss the patent infringement case against Sidense.  The Appellate Court is expected to review, and if Kilopass prevails return the case with instructions for trial in the second half of 2013.

The responsibility of the Appellate Court in a patent infringement case is to review whether the legal procedures and legal standards were upheld.  Specifically, in this case Kilopass believes the US District Court has ruled incorrectly on its Summary Judgment decision to dismiss the case on multiple grounds.  First, the District Court ruled Kilopass as having disavowed its patent claim on “word-lines and bit-lines being interchangeable” because of an error in Kilopass’ USPTO patent re-examination correspondence (since corrected), even though patent law explicitly requires the patent prosecution history be reviewed in its entirety, and also requires that any disclaimer on patent claims by patentees must be explicit and unambiguous, which Kilopass never did.  Second, the District Court’s ruling on Kilopass’ disavowal automatically created a contradictory position with the Court’s own construction of patent claims after the Markman hearing.  Third, the District Court’s global application of this disavowal across all Kilopass patents is incorrect as a matter of law.  Finally, even with these errors, there are still several disputes in the facts, which the District Court by law cannot rule for or against in a Summary Judgment decision.  The decision on disputed facts must be made by a jury in a fair trial.

“We are thankful of the US legal system and its review process,” said Charlie Cheng, president and CEO of Kilopass Technology Inc.  “We are confident the Appellate Court’s review panel will quickly correct the critical procedural and legal errors and allow the case to go to trial.”

Furthermore, in the global market the legal options for redress of grievances are not restricted to one geographic area, nor to a single legal remedy. Kilopass is prepared to pursue all these avenues to protect its proprietary technology.

More Information

The redacted version of Kilopass appeal brief is available on Kilopass web site (www.kilopass.com).

About Kilopass

Kilopass Technology, Inc., a leading supplier of embedded NVM intellectual property, leverages standard logic CMOS processes to deliver one-time programmable (OTP) and many-time programmable (MTP) memory. Kilopass has 58 patents granted or pending and more than 800,000 wafers shipped from a dozen foundries and Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDM).  Its more than 150 customers build solutions 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 mailto:info@kilopass.com.