As previously reported on Micronet, on January 12, 2018, according to Chinese law, China Customs adopted intellectual property protection measures based on China-Microtechnology's patent No. CN 202492576, and temporarily detained two companies imported by Veeco Asia to China. Infringement of the EPIK700 model of MOCVD equipment.
China Micro Devices (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is a research company with independent research and development capabilities, has developed a number of chip devices with independent intellectual property rights, and applied for more than 1200 patents worldwide. With the gradual increase of international market share Expanded, intellectual property disputes between China Micro Corporation and US Veeco Precision Instrument Co., Ltd. ("Veeco" for short).
On April 12, 2017, Veeco launched a patent infringement lawsuit against SGL (SGL) in the Federal District Court in the Eastern District of New York, USA. SGL is a wafer carrier supplier for China Microelectronics. In early November of the same year, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, United States, agreed to Veeco’s preliminary injunction against SGL, which prohibits SGL from selling wafers for use with Veeco's patented non-docking metal organic chemical vapor deposition system (MOCVD). , including wafer carrier designed for micro-MOCVD system.
After Weico's US lawsuit against SGL was initiated, China Microelectronics quickly responded. In July 2017, China Microelectronics officially sued 'Veeco Shanghai' to Fujian High Court for alleged violations of its TurboDisk EPIK 700 model MOCVD equipment. China's patent for the wafer carrier's lock-in in China and China requires it to stop infringement and claim hundreds of millions of infringement damages. In early December, the Fujian High Court agreed to apply for a ban on Veeco Shanghai from China Microelectronics, which prohibits the import of Veeco Shanghai. Manufacturing, sales to any third party, or promised to sell infringement of micro-patented graphite products.
In this process, Veeco Shanghai submitted a patent invalidation request to the Patent Reexamination Board after the lawsuit was filed in July last year, claiming that the Microelectronics patent was invalid. The Patent Reexamination Board dismissed Veeco on November 24, 2017. Invalidation request, confirming that the micro-semiconductor patent is valid.
On January 23, 2018, the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office issued a review decision to identify Veeco USA’s No. ZL 01822507.1, entitled “Pedestrian-Type Reactor for Epitaxial Layer Growth on a Wafer by Chemical Vapor Deposition”. The entire claim of the invention patent was invalid because of its lack of novelty and inventiveness. It is reported that the patent that was declared invalid was the Chinese family patent of the US patent (US 6,506,252, US 6,726,769) in which Veeco filed the US patent (US 6,506,252, US 6,726,769) for US patent infringement last year.
It is worth mentioning that, after more than one year of patent litigation, Veeco, China Microelectronics and SGL jointly announced on February 9, 2018 that they agreed to reach a settlement on pending lawsuits between the three parties and resolved them in a friendly manner. All the pending disputes include the lawsuit against Veeco in the Fujian Higher Court and Veeco's lawsuit against SGL in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
In this regard, Wang Yanhui, secretary general of the Mobile China Alliance, commented that the reason why Sino-micron can reconcile with competitors in the patent warfare is not small.
It can be said that as the Customs stepped into law enforcement, the United States began to face up to the self-developed patents of China Micro and Micro Corporation and its intellectual property rights in China. It initiated negotiations with China Micro-enterprise and the two sides finally reached a globally-reconciled mutual settlement agreement.