ESI Awarded $13.1 Million in Damages in Patent Litigation
PORTLAND, Ore., April 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. (Nasdaq: ESIO - news) announced a federal court jury awarded the Company a $13.1 million damage judgment in its patent infringement suit against General Scanning of Watertown, Massachusetts. The jury also concluded that General Scanning's infringement was willful. A finding of willfulness gives the court the authority to increase the damages up to three times.
On April 2, 1999 the jury issued a verdict upholding the validity of ESI's pioneering link blowing patent in a lawsuit before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. v. General Scanning, Inc. No. C-96-4268 SBA). After a four-day trial, the jury unanimously rejected GSI's allegations that the claims of ESI's patent 5,265,114 entitled ''System and Method for Selectively Laser Processing a Target Structure of One or More Materials of a Multimaterial, Mutilayer Device'', were invalid.
In announcing the jury award, Donald R. VanLuvanee, Chief Executive Officer and President of ESI said, ''ESI makes significant investments in the development of new manufacturing technology and products for the semiconductor and microelectronics marketplace, with a focus on increasing value to our customers. This research is the engine that drives our success -- the resulting intellectual property is critical to ESI and we will continue to vigorously protect our technology.''
The patented technology is used in ESI's advanced laser repair systems, which produce 64 and 256 megabit memory chips and semiconductors with embedded memory. The systems are enabling technology for the next generation of semiconductor yield improvement and the most advanced laser repair systems available on the market. The systems feature patented laser system technology, operating at a wavelength of 1.3 microns, and offer semiconductor manufacturers a much wider process window and higher yields than systems using conventional 1.047 micron laser technology.
General Scanning Inc. merged with Lumonics Inc. of Kanata, Ontario on March 22, 1999 to form GSI Lumonics Inc. (Nasdaq: GSLI - news).
About ESI
ESI, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, designs and manufactures sophisticated products used around the world in electronics manufacturing including: laser manufacturing systems for semiconductor yield improvement; production and test equipment for the manufacture of surface mount ceramic capacitors; laser trim systems for precise electrical tuning of circuits; precision laser and mechanical drilling systems for electronic interconnection; and machine vision systems. Electro Scientific Industries is traded on the NASDAQ National Market System under the symbol, ''ESIO.'' ESI's web site is esi.com.
Statements in this press release may include forward looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ, either better or worse, from those discussed. Such risks and uncertainties are numerous and are identified in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and interim reports on Form 10-Q.
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