Infineon sues Innoscience over US GaN patents – update
Infineon Technologies is suing Chinese competitor Innoscience for infringement of a United States patent covering gallium nitride (GaN) power technology.
The patent by Infineon claims cover core aspects of GaN power semiconductors around the reliability and performance of Infineon’s proprietary GaN devices.
The lawsuit against Innoscience was filed in the district court of the Central District of California and follows a similar suit by US GaN company EPC. That initially covered four patents but has since been reduce to two.
- EPC’s GaN fight with Innoscience looks to China trade war
- China’s Innoscience denies EPC claims of GaN patent
The case was brought by Infineon Technologies Austria against Innoscience (Zhuhai) Technology and Innoscience America. However this could raise issues in Europe as Innoscience partners with Belgian research lab imec and KU Leuven on research.
“The production of gallium nitride power transistors requires completely new semiconductor designs and processes”, said Adam White, President of Infineon’s Power & Sensor Systems Division (above).
- Infineon completes acquisition of GaN Systems
- Innoscience grabs former senior NXP engineer to lead R&D
“With nearly two decades of GaN experience, Infineon can guarantee the outstanding quality required for the highest performance in the respective end products. We vigorously protect our intellectual property and thus act in the interest of all customers and end users.” Infineon has been investing in R&D, product development and the manufacturing expertise related to GaN technology for decades. Infineon continues to defend its intellectual property and protect its investments,” he said.
Innoscience ‘firmly denounces the accusations made by Infineon Technologies Austria AG’.
“Infineon’s intention with this litigation is also in question, as it has asserted a patent that has significant defects,” said Innoscience. “Particularly, even a cursory review of Infineon’s patent portfolio reveals that the alleged “invention” of the asserted patent was already disclosed in Infineon’s own earlier prior art patents, raising concerns that it may have committed fraud on the United States Patent and Trademark Office, for not making proper disclosures during the prosecution of the asserted defective patent.”
The lawsuit only concerns a small fraction of Innoscience’s packaged high-voltage (650V–700V) GaN transistors and does not affect the vast majority of its other products, including unpackaged transistors and wafers, low-voltage transistors, and certain packaged transistors, it said.
“Innoscience respects others’ valid IP rights and is also dedicated to developing its own IP portfolio,” it said. “Despite being an eight-year old company, Innoscience has filed more than 800 patent applications globally. Moreover, Innoscience has always sought a cooperative and mutually beneficial approach to develop the global GaN industry, even among others in the same industry.”
www.infineon.com; www.innoscience.com
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