Andrew, what is your opinion regarding the following legal news for CFMT (pasted from Yahoo message board)?
On the Legal Front with Steag, CFM
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a petition by CFM Technologies Inc. of Exton, Penn. for a rehearing in a patent infringement case involving the Marangoni wafer drying process developed by Steag Electronic Systems AG of Essen, Germany.
CFM had sued Steag in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, alleging infringement of a CFM dryerpatent. The decision leaves in effect the May 13 Federal Circuit ruling that the District Court jury verdict of infringement should be vacated because it "seems to lack substantial evidence support."
The Federal Circuit has sent the matter back to the District Court to consider this "substantial evidence" issue, rather than having the Federal Circuit "reach an ultimate determination on the matter in the first instance."
"Once again, we are encouraged that the appellate court has confirmed its support of Steag's position that the Marangoni process does not infringe any CFM patents," said Johannes Brinkmann, chief executive officer of Steag Electronic Systems Inc., a Steag subsidiary in Austin. "We are confident that this issue will finally be resolved in favor of Steag and that Marangoni drying equipment soon will again be available for sale in the United States."
Separately, CFM Technologies last week said it will abandon further prosecution of its European Patent (U.K.) No. 0 428 784 on direct-displacement drying of semiconductor wafers.
Roger Carolin, CFM's president and CEO, said in a statement, "We have decided to abandon this patent on a pure cost-benefit basis. We have been defending this patent against a nuisance nullity action brought by a competitor found to have willfully infringed a similar U.S. patent on this technology. The benefit of retaining the U.K. patent, given the small size of the market for our products in the United Kingdom, is simply not worth the cost.
"We are evaluating the continued prosecution of similar actions in other countries with small markets and may take similar actions in certain of those countries. We believe that our primary focus should be on defending the substantial intellectual property assets protected by our suite of U.S. and important foreign patents from infringement." |
