Fairchild Semiconductor (www.fairchildsemi.com) announced yesterday it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Power Integrations in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The lawsuit asserts infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,264,719 by Power Integrations' pulse width modulation (PWM) products. Fairchild intends to take all possible steps to seek a court order to stop Power Integrations from making, using, selling, offering for sale or importing the infringing products into the United States and to obtain monetary damages for Power Integrations' infringing activities.
Fairchild and Power Integrations have been in litigation since 2004 in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. This lawsuit is a separate action filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
"What Power Integrations has not been able to achieve in the marketplace, they have sought to achieve in the court room. We are forced to respond in kind. However, in our case, Fairchild is asserting a patent that pre-dates Power Integrations' patents by at least fifteen months," said Tom Beaver, Fairchild's executive vice president for Worldwide Sales and Marketing. "We believe Power Integrations' products are infringing the '719 patent. We will take all possible steps to bring Power Integrations' infringement to a stop and to be made whole for the damages they are inflicting."
Intersil Corporation owns U.S. Patent No. 5,264,719, for High Voltage Lateral Semiconductor Devices, and is a co-plaintiff with Fairchild in the lawsuit. Fairchild has held license rights under the patent since 2001 and more recently secured exclusive rights to assert the patent against Power Integrations.