{"id":2054,"date":"2025-03-20T06:37:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T06:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2025-03-20T06:43:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T06:43:04","slug":"gallium-nitride-patent-wars-chinas-innoscience-claims-ultimate-victory-in-itc-litigation-against-epc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/gallium-nitride-patent-wars-chinas-innoscience-claims-ultimate-victory-in-itc-litigation-against-epc\/","title":{"rendered":"Gallium nitride patent wars: China&#8217;s Innoscience claims \u201cultimate victory\u201d in ITC litigation against EPC\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"border-width:1px\">\n<p><strong>Context: <\/strong>In May 2023, Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) filed a Sec. 337 complaint against China\u2019s Innoscience Suzhou Technology Holding Co., Ltd. (Innoscience) in the United States International Trade Commission\u2019s (USITC or ITC), enforcing four patents related to certain gallium nitride (GaN) technology. EPC then withdrew two of those patents. And, last July, the ITC\u2019s Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Clark Cheney found one patent was infringed, while the other was not (<a href=\"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/gallium-nitride-patent-wars-itc-judge-believes-innoscience-infringes-one-of-four-patents-originally-asserted-by-epc-but-ptab-ipr-is-pending\/\">July 7, 2024 <strong>ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>). In January, Innoscience appealed against the ITC\u2019s ruling on the validity and infringement of that one patent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s new: <\/strong>In an \u201cultimate victory\u201d for Innoscience in this long-running dispute, the company yesterday announced the United States Patent &amp; Trademark Office (USPTO) invalidated the only remaining patent in the ITC case after Innoscience proved that EPC\u2019s allegations were \u201ccompletely unfounded\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.innoscience.com\/site\/details\/991?el=mdnav\">March 19, 2025 Innoscience press release<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Direct impact and wider ramifications:<\/strong> This will obviously be a big blow to EPC, although appeals are still on the table. Innoscience is also facing another major GaN dispute, filed by rival Infineon, in which it filed a countersuit in a court in China in January. The Chinese semiconductor firm is showing no signs of backing down. The company made that clear in its press release yesterday, stating: \u201cInnoscience is ready to dust off the discord fabricated by EPC and focus its effort on developing and providing top-notch GaN-based power solutions for its customers worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The last remaining patent-in-suit was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/patents.google.com\/patent\/US8350294B2\/en?oq=8%2c350%2c294\">U.S. Patent No. 8,350,294<\/a> (\u201cCompensated gate MISFET and method for fabricating the same\u201d).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In its announcement yesterday, Innoscience said the USPTO found that all challenged claims of the patent are invalid and should be cancelled. The decision \u201cremoves the entire foundation\u201d of EPC\u2019s \u201cfalse\u201d patent infringement claim against Innoscience and means the defendant has achieved a complete victory in the two-year-long \u201cmeritless patent war\u201d launched by EPC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the final written decision after the inter partes review:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/24998_12756906_03-18-2025_TRIAL.TRMFWD.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of 24998_12756906_03-18-2025_TRIAL.TRMFWD.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-d36321df-095c-47f4-87a3-5c940f530c02\" href=\"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/24998_12756906_03-18-2025_TRIAL.TRMFWD.pdf\">24998_12756906_03-18-2025_TRIAL.TRMFWD<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/24998_12756906_03-18-2025_TRIAL.TRMFWD.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-d36321df-095c-47f4-87a3-5c940f530c02\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Counsel<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A team at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/\">Finnegan<\/a> helped secure this win for Innoscience, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/professionals\/lionel-m-lavenue.html\">Lionel Lavenue<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/professionals\/kara-a-specht.html\">Kara Specht<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/professionals\/cory-c-bell.html\">Cory Bell<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/professionals\/forrest-a-jones.html\">Forrest Jones<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/professionals\/chen-zang-ph-d.html\">Chen Zang<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/professionals\/yi-yu-ph-d.html\">Yi Yu<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/professionals\/luke-h-macdonald.html\">Luke MacDonald<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finnegan.com\/en\/professionals\/carlos-e-duarte-guevara-ph-d.html\">Carlos Duarte-Guevara<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>EPC was represented by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blankrome.com\/\">Blank Rome<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blankrome.com\/people\/walter-d-davis\">Walter Davis<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blankrome.com\/people\/dipu-a-doshi\">Dipu Doshi<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/mark-thronson-6b02a83a\/\">Mark Thronson<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blankrome.com\/people\/stephen-a-soffen\">Stephen Soffen<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blankrome.com\/people\/ameya-v-paradkar\">Ameya Paradkar<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blankrome.com\/people\/jonathan-ws-england\">Jonathan England<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Other ongoing GaN litigation<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Innoscience is also embroiled in a dispute over GaN patents brought by German chipmaker Infineon in both Germany and the U.S. \u2013 a case that has seen the pendulum swing back and forth quite frequently over the past nine months. Last June, the Munich I Regional Court granted Infineon an ex parte preliminary injunction (PI) (<a href=\"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/munich-court-granted-ex-parte-preliminary-injunction-over-gallium-nitride-related-patent-infineon-v-innoscience\/\">June 16, 2024 <strong>ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>). In that decision, Innoscience claimed, the court granted the ex parte PI without having seen a protective writ. This possibly marked the first time (at least in recent history) in which a German national court granted an ex parte patent PI on that basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, also last June, a motion brought by Innoscience to dismiss the lawsuit was quickly denied without prejudice by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (<a href=\"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/infineon-may-have-to-amend-its-gallium-nitride-patent-complaint-in-california-but-innoscience-jumped-the-gun\/\">June 26, 2024 ip fray article<\/a>). The following month, Infineon added three more patents to its U.S. lawsuit (<a href=\"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/gallium-nitride-patent-war-escalates-as-infineon-amends-u-s-complaint-now-asserting-four-patents-not-just-one\/\">July 24, 2024 <strong>ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the most recent development in that case, Innoscience countersued Infineon in the Intermediate People\u2019s Court of Suzhou City, enforcing two GaN-related patents (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.innoscience.com\/site\/details\/977\">January 20, 2025 Innoscience press release<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Patent &amp; Trademark Office has invalidated the only remaining patent in a United States International Trade Commission dispute initiated by Efficient Power Conversion over gallium nitride patents, handing Innoscience a significant win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,112,28,12,14,42,17,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-gallium-nitride","category-l-icensors-licensees","category-patent-litigation","category-patents","category-technology-fields-markets","category-usitc-itc-international-trade-commission","category-united-states-patent-trademark-office-uspto"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2069,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions\/2069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}