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SynQor Targets Cisco for Continuing IBA Patent Infringement

March 24, 2013 by Jeff Shepard

SynQor, Inc. has filed a new suit against Cisco Systems, Inc. claiming that Cisco continues to violate two of SynQor’s patents, the '261 patent’ and the '597 patent’ both relating to an "Intermediate Bus Architecture With A Quasi-Regulated Bus Converter." This action follows a recent unanimous decision in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington D.C. affirmed an earlier decision of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and upheld a $95M jury verdict previously won by SynQor, Inc., as well as the Court's additional award of supplemental damages and sanctions.

According to the most-recent court filing, “Cisco representatives testified that they would complete the process of qualifying purportedly fully-regulated converters by the end of September 2011.” And, “One of Cisco's lawyers later told the Court:” ‘we went to fully regulated converters much more quickly and that's what we are using today.’

The filing continues: It turns out, however, that Cisco did not replace all the bus converters found to infringe in the earlier case with fully-regulated, much less non-infringing, bus converters. Instead, SynQor claims that Cisco worked with its suppliers to design and qualify many replacement bus converters that are unregulated within at least a portion of their intended operating range. These replacement converters have both an unregulated/non-regulated mode and a regulated mode of operation in their intended operating range.

Through a subpoena in the case that was severed from the successful earlier patent infringement case, SynQor pursued discovery from Cisco regarding these products, as well as through discovery in its case against Cisco. SynQor claims that Cisco resisted its efforts to obtain information regarding these products until SynQor finally obtained non-confidential samples of these products in late January 2013 and was able to test them to first identify the unregulated mode of operation. Given Cisco's discovery delays, SynQor did not know of the infringing nature of these purported "fully regulated" replacements until the samples were finally provided and tested.

SynQor further claims; Cisco has been and is now directly infringing, actively inducing infringement of, and/or contributing to the infringement of the '261 patent. The infringing acts include, but are not limited to, the manufacture, use, promotion, sale, importation, and/or offer for sale of products incorporating replacement bus converters such as but not limited to the Bel Fuse 0RRE-32S10, Bel Fuse 0RRM-50S10, Bel Fuse 0RRQ-45M11, Bel Fuse 0RRQ-50V10, Delta Q48SK9R637, Murata Power Solutions RBQ-31250, Murata Power Solutions RBQ-8.5/45-L48NBL2, Murata Power Solutions RBQ-9.6/50-L48NBL2, Murata Power Solutions RBQ-10.8/50-L54NBL2, Power-One QTR52T50096, and/or products incorporating such replacement bus converters with POLs (including those built into Cisco's load board) in intermediate bus architecture power supply systems.

No comment was forthcoming from Cisco prior to publication deadlines.