Kilopass asserted three U.S. patents, No. 6,777,757 ('757), No. 6,856,540 ('540) and No. 6,950,751 ('751) against Sidense in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in May and June 2010. Sidense asked the USPTO for re-examination of all three patents. In a series of non-final actions, the USPTO rejected all claims of the '757 and '540 patents, and sustained validity of the '751 patent claims by ruling that wordlines and bitlines are not interchangeable. The USPTO stated, "It [is] well known to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention that the bitlines and wordlines have a distinct functional effect on the operation of memory devices and thus are not interchangeable."
"Unfortunately for Kilopass, to prove infringement of its patents, it needs to try to prove that wordlines and bitlines are interchangeable," said Roger Cook, Sidense's lead attorney at Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton. "Now that the USPTO has premised the validity of their '751 patent on wordlines and bitlines being not interchangeable, Kilopass is in a tough spot. If they try to prove otherwise for infringement, they risk invalidating their patent. They should probably drop their suit and save their patent for use against someone who, unlike Sidense, is actually using Kilopass' technology."
"We always felt that their claims were baseless," added Xerxes Wania, Sidense President and CEO. "With the current USPTO actions, Sidense's position has never been stronger. The USPTO has spoken volumes by granting all our claims in the '855 patent claims last week, rejecting Kilopass' two patents and stating its position regarding the bitlines and the wordlines in our favor."
About Sidense Corp.
Sidense Corp. provides secure, very dense and reliable non-volatile, one-time programmable (OTP) memory IP for use in standard-logic CMOS processes with no additional masks or process steps required and no impact on product yield. The Company's innovative one-transistor 1T-Fuse™ architecture provides the industry's smallest footprint, most reliable and lowest power Logic Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) IP solution. With over 70 patents granted or pending, Sidense OTP provides a field-programmable alternative solution to Flash, mask ROM and eFuse in many OTP and MTP applications.
Sidense SiPROM, SLP and ULP memory products, embedded in over 140 customer designs, are available from 180nm down to 40nm and are scalable to 28nm and below. The IP is offered at and has been adopted by all top-tier semiconductor foundries and selected IDMs. Customers are using Sidense OTP for analog trimming, code storage, encryption keys such as HDCP, WHDI, RFID and Chip ID, medical, automotive, and configurable processors and logic. For more information, please visit www.sidense.com.
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Media Contacts: Susan Cain Cain Communications for Sidense Tel: 503-538-2747 Email Contact Jim Lipman Sidense Tel: 925-606-1370 Email Contact
