Monday April 29, 9:31 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Atmel Corporation
Court Awards Atmel $20 Million For Patent Infringement By Silicon Storage Technologies
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 29, 2002--Atmel Corporation (Nasdaq:ATML - news) announced today that in the matter captioned Atmel Corporation v. Silicon Storage Technologies, Inc., Civ. Action No. C-96-00039-SC, in the Northern District of California, a jury has found that Atmel's U.S. Patent Nos. 4,511,811 and 4,673,829 (Charge Pump for Providing Programming Voltage to the Word Lines in a Semiconductor Memory Array) were valid and willfully infringed by Silicon Storage Technologies, Inc. ("SST"), and awarded Atmel $19,979,640.00. In addition, based upon the jury verdict of willful infringement by SST, Atmel will ask for tripling of the damages, interest and payment of Atmel's attorneys' fees.
"We attempted for six years to get SST to legally license our patented technology, but SST refused," said Julie Mar-Spinola, Atmel's Chief Litigation and Intellectual Property Counsel. "The favorable verdict is particularly gratifying because it validates the strength and value of Atmel's patents. Atmel will always fight diligently to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property rights."
Atmel's President and Chief Executive Officer, George Perlegos, stated, "We believe that the judgement and award are appropriate. The '811 and '829 patents provided a revolutionary and unique circuit design by which non-volatile memories like EEPROMs and Flash could operate from a single power supply. These building blocks were key to the growth of non-volatile memories in that they allowed the EEPROM and Flash memories to develop themselves into the $10 billion market that they are today."
Ms. Mar-Spinola stated, "There remains one additional Atmel patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,451,903 ("Silicon Signature") to be tried. Since Judge Samuel Conti already decided that SST infringed the '903 patent, which was the basis for Atmel obtaining an exclusion order against SST in last year's litigation before the International Trade Commission, we look forward to another favorable outcome." |
