Power Integrations today announced that a Federal District Court in Delaware has granted its request for another permanent injunction against Fairchild Semiconductor products that infringe the company’s patents. The ruling, issued yesterday, follows a 2012 jury verdict in which approximately 80 Fairchild products were found to violate three of Power Integrations’ patents.
The court’s order also provides that any additional Fairchild products that include the infringing “integrated frequency jitter” and/or “saw limiter” (i.e., constant output power) features are also subject to the injunction. Further, the court ordered Fairchild to provide notification of the injunction to all customers, distributors and other third parties that have purchased the infringing products. Financial damages stemming from the infringement are to be determined in a future court proceeding.
Yesterday’s ruling is the latest in a string of decisions relating to the serial infringement of Power Integrations’ patents by Fairchild and its System General (SG) subsidiary. In 2006, Fairchild was found to infringe four of Power Integrations’ patents, resulting in a permanent injunction against more than 100 infringing Fairchild products (listed below). The court later found the infringement to be willful, describing Fairchild’s behavior as “blatant copying.” Earlier this year, Fairchild was ordered to undergo third-party monitoring after being found to have violated the injunction.
In 2006, the International Trade Commission found that SG infringed two of Power Integrations’ patents and later issued an exclusion order barring the infringing products from the U.S. market. And earlier this year in a Federal District Court in California, a jury found that Fairchild willfully infringed two of Power Integrations’ patents and awarded Power Integrations $105 million in damages. Power Integrations is also seeking a permanent injunction against the approximately 140 Fairchild products implicated in that decision, and any other products containing the infringing features, known as “frequency reduction” (referred to by Fairchild as “Green Mode”) and “externally adjustable current limit.” Some of the parts found to infringe in California are already subject to the injunction issued yesterday by the
Commented Balu Balakrishnan, president and CEO of Power Integrations: “This latest ruling is another important step in our ongoing efforts to stop Fairchild’s blatant disregard for our intellectual-property rights. Fairchild has been found to infringe our patents on four separate occasions, including repeated violations of the same patents. We hope that today’s ruling and other recent decisions will help bring about an end to Fairchild’s unlawful behavior.”
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