UPDATE: Spansion To Receive $150 Million In Settlement With Samsung
Spansion Inc. (CODE) will receive $150 million over five years as part of a settlement of its long-running patent litigation and disputes with Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE, SSNHY).
Spansion shares were up 4.2% at $18.68 in recent trading. However, the stock remains off 10% this year.
Under the settlement, the companies agreed to a seven-year cross-licensing of each other's patents. Spansion also agreed to purchase Samsung's bankruptcy claims for $30 million, which if approved by the bankruptcy court, will allow Spansion to retire 1.65 million to 1.85 million shares.
Spansion Chief Executive John Kispert said in an interview that the settlement--which closes about 2 1/2 years of litigation--provided validation of the value of its patents, which it expects will provide opportunities to license its storage technology. The company holds more than 2,000 related patents, some of which were disputed in eight lawsuits.
Such technology, which represents more than 80% of Spansion's business, is used in products such as automobile starters and airbags, where small size and safety is a factor. The so-called charge-trapping technology, which allows storage of more information in a smaller space than competing technologies, has the potential to be developed for specific needs in a number of industries such as smart-grid, medical, industrial automation and entertainment, Kispert said.
Spansion launched the litigation against Samsung in 2008, looking to block imports of products such as Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPods and Research In Motion Ltd.'s (RIMM, RIM.TO) BlackBerrys that contained Samsung chips. The company at the time named Samsung and several companies whose devices used the chips in the suits.
In August, Spansion said it filed an additional three separate patent-infringement complaints against Samsung relating to its flash-memory products.
Spansion--a spinoff of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)--holds flash-memory-related patents that date from the 1990s. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in early 2009, as it was weighed down by $1.5 billion in debt. It emerged from bankruptcy in May 2010.
-By Tess Stynes, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2481; Tess.Stynes@dowjones.com
si.advfn.com^CODE |
