Patent Law

The following is excerpted from a July 1, 2009 article by Rick Merritt at EE Times:

Systems makers may be beginning to feel the bite of a limited exclusion order prohibiting the import of chips from six companies found to infringe two packaging patents of Tessera Technologies Inc.

"We were told we can't get the Freescale MCF5282 after July 17 for at least a year due to patent infringement," said an engineer from Nordson Corp. (Duluth, Georgia) in an email to EE Times. "This is causing quite a ruckus in engineering," he said.

Nordson uses the Freescale chip, a Coldfire microcontroller, in an industrial controller used primarily on packaging lines to control adhesive deposition. The company was informed by its contract manufacturer in Ohio about the issue sourcing the part.

A Freescale spokesman said the shipments in question do relate to the U.S. International Trade Commission's order banning imports of certain products found to infringe two patents of Tessera.

Affected companies include ATI Technologies (now part of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.), Freescale Semiconductor, Motorola Inc., Spansion LLC and ST Microelectronics NV and Qualcomm Inc. Freescale and Qualcomm have posted the bond to allow imports, said a Tessera spokesperson.

Read the full article here.