News

IXYS Wins Appeal on Patent Dispute with IR

March 18, 2004 by Jeff Shepard

IXYS Corp. (Santa Clara, CA), a leader in power semiconductors for power conversion and motion control applications, reported that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, or vacated and remanded, all findings of patent infringement previously issued against IXYS by the United States District Court for Central California in the patent infringement lawsuit filed by International Rectifier Corp. (IR, El Segundo, CA) in respect of its U.S. Patents Nos. 4,959,699, 5,008,725 and 5,130,767. The Appeals Court also vacated the final judgment in those proceedings upon which the District Court's earlier damages award and injunction were based.

The Appeals Court agreed with IXYS about the meaning of the disputed terms in the patent claims asserted by IR. Since all of IR's asserted patent claims included one or more of these terms, the Appeals Court dismissed some charges of infringement outright, and remanded others to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with the opinion. The Appeals Court's actions mean that the District Court's award of $27.2 million in damages and injunction against IXYS are vacated as a matter of law.