SynQor Settles Patent Litigation with Ericsson; Withdraws Motion to Enjoin Vicor Bus Converters
SynQor announced that it has entered into a definitive Settlement Agreement to resolve its pending litigation with Ericsson Inc. In January 2011, SynQor filed suit against Ericsson, among others (SynQor, Inc. v. Ericsson Inc., Cisco Systems and Vicor Corporation, Civil Action No. 2:11-CV-54-TJW-CE) in the Eastern District of Texas for alleged infringement of SynQor’s family of patents relating to bus converters and intermediate bus architecture. In response, Ericsson asserted various affirmative defenses and counterclaims in the litigation.
Pursuant to the terms of the Settlement Agreement, Ericsson has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to SynQor and to discontinue its sales of unregulated and semi-regulated bus converters to third parties in the United States. In exchange, Ericsson has preserved for itself the right to continue to use, make, sell and import Ericsson’s semi-regulated bus converters strictly for use in Ericsson end products. The parties also have agreed to mutual releases and a dismissal with prejudice of all claims asserted against each other in the litigation.
Dr. Martin F. Schlecht, President and CEO of SynQor commented: "We are pleased to reach this agreement with Ericsson relating to our IBA patents. We look forward to continuing to work with our customers to implement this important power architecture in their telecommunications, network, storage, computing and other applications."
Meanwhile, Vicor announced that SynQor has unilaterally withdrawn its motion to enjoin the manufacture and sale of Vicor Bus Converters. Three months after filing its motion, and after three rounds of briefing and extensive expedited discovery, SynQor informed the Court that it was voluntarily abandoning its claim for preliminary injunctive relief against Vicor, only a week prior to the Court’s scheduled hearing on the issue.
In opposing SynQor’s preliminary injunction motion, Vicor states that it demonstrated that its patented Sine Amplitude Converter™ (SAC) topology, the engine for all of Vicor’s bus converter products, is fundamentally different from the "square wave" converters disclosed and claimed in SynQor’s patents. Vicor also says that it demonstrated, and SynQor did not dispute, that Vicor’s SAC devices were "full-resonant" converters; SynQor had expressly distinguished such converters from its alleged invention before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Vicor also noted that all of SynQor’s asserted claims stood rejected in ongoing reexamination proceedings before the PTO, and provided additional evidence showing that SynQor’s claims were invalid over the prior art. Faced with this evidence, SynQor withdrew its injunction motion, thus avoiding the upcoming hearing.
