Sidense Wins: United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Affirms District Court Decisions

Update: Synopsys Expands DesignWare IP Portfolio with Acquisition of Sidense Corporation (Oct. 17, 2017)

In its one-word opinion, the Federal Circuit “AFFIRMED” Sidense’s summary judgment of non-infringement on Kilopass’ patent claims, as well as the dismissal of all of Kilopass’ remaining claims against Sidense.

Ottawa, Canada – April 11, 2013 - Sidense Corp., a leading developer of Logic Non-Volatile Memory (LNVM) OTP IP cores, announced today that a panel of judges in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit “Affirmed” the District Court for the Northern District of California’s summary judgment of non-infringement on Kilopass’ patent claims and its dismissal, with prejudice, of all remaining claims against Sidense.This represents a clear and unequivocal win for Sidense. Twice now, in summary judgment, and now on appeal, United States courts have agreed with Sidense that Kilopass’ lawsuit against it was entirely without merit.

“We never doubted that this lawsuit was a meritless attempt to derail Sidense, and its superior technology, in the marketplace,” said Xerxes Wania, Sidense President and CEO. “They failed. We won.”

Litigation counsel for Sidense, Roger Cook, partner at Kilpatrick, Townsend and Stockton, was gratified by the win. “Judge Illston ruled in Sidense’s favor on the patent infringement claims for four separate reasons, each one of which was soundly based and by itself sufficient to defeat Kilopass’ infringement claims. Outcome of the appeal was never in doubt.  In more than 40 years of handling patent infringement cases, this one stands out. Sidense is seeking and richly deserves recovery of its attorney fees from Kilopass on the basis of bad faith and baseless patent litigation. Companies who engage in this type of anti-competitive litigation need to pay the price.”   

Confident of winning the lawsuit, Sidense has continued to innovate by making advances at the leading-edge 28 and 20nm silicon process nodes.  Demonstrating the unwavering support of its customers, partners, investors and employees, Sidense has achieved record sales of its industry-leading 1T-OTP embedded NVM technology, which is smaller, faster and requires less power than other OTP technologies, throughout the litigation.  

About Sidense Corp.

Sidense Corp. provides secure, very dense and reliable non-volatile, one-time programmable (OTP) memory IP for use in standard-logic CMOS processes with no additional masks or process steps required. The Company's innovative one-transistor 1T-Fuse™   architecture provides the industry's smallest footprint, most reliable and lowest power Logic Non-Volatile Memory (LNVM) IP solution. With over 100 patents granted or pending, Sidense OTP provides a field-programmable alternative solution to Flash, mask ROM and eFuse in many OTP and MTP applications.

Sidense SiPROM, SLP and ULP memory products, embedded in more than 250 customer designs, are available from 180nm down to 28nm and are scalable to 20nm and below.

The IP is offered at and has been adopted by all top-tier semiconductor foundries and selected IDMs. Customers are using Sidense OTP for analog trimming, code storage, encryption keys such as HDCP, WHDI, RFID and Chip ID, medical, automotive, and configurable processors and logic. For more information, please visit www.sidense.com.