ARM CPUs Get A Hand in MMP Infringement Court Case

Published: Friday, September 14 2007 @ 7:55 AM CDT
Contributed by: Tommy

CUPERTINO, Calif. – The TPL Group has said that its motion to simplify and streamline the Moore Microprocessor Patent™ (MMP) Portfolio infringement trial in the US District Court in the Eastern District of Texas has been granted. Accordingly, a partial judgment of non-infringement on certain products stipulates the following:

• The “instruction groups” elements of the accused claim of US Patent 5,784,584 (US ‘584) is deemed non-infringed for the purpose of this trial, based on the Court's claim interpretation, thereby allowing appeal from this claim interpretation ruling to be initiated immediately, rather than waiting until the end of trial.
• All accused ARM core families (ARM7, ARM9, ARM9E, ARM10E, ARM11), as well as the ARM Cortex microprocessor core family, are deemed non-infringed under the Court's claim interpretation of "instruction groups," thereby removing ARM as an intervener in the Texas Court trial.

Related moves initiated by The TPL Group to streamline the trial have included:

• Stipulation that selected semiconductor devices to represent groups or families of chips and/or end user products so that the infringement evidence completed on one semiconductor device can be applied to many devices and/or end user products.
• Motion for continuance of the trial to January 2008, thereby allowing 60 more days for additional discovery time needed for the extremely broad scope and pervasiveness of infringing end user products, thereby paving the way for very clear and succinct presentations to the jury during the upcoming trial.

As a result of these approved moves initiated by TPL, the trial will focus on two US patents in the MMP Portfolio (5,809,336 and 6,598,148), both of which encompass several claims against accused products manufactured by the defendants.

According to Dan Leckrone, Chairman of The TPL Group, the June 18th Markman ruling broadly confirmed the strength of MMP claims including the very significant affirmation of US 5,809,336 as applied to both modern PLL-based and non PLL-based systems. “The ruling reflected well the skill of the Texas Court in dissecting and dealing with a very complex trial over the past 15 months.”

Commenting on the proposed partial judgment relative to US ‘584, Leckrone said, “We continue to believe that the claim construction for ‘instruction groups’ deserves more scrutiny than the Court could give it during the Markman hearing due to time and space constraints. While the proposed partial judgment we are seeking agrees to a judgment of non-infringement on this claim construction for the Texas Court trial, it will allow us to seek reversal of this interpretation in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit immediately. Otherwise, TPL would have had to wait for the end of the Texas Court trial in order to have the interpretation reviewed by the Court of Appeals.”

Despite the Texas Court trial, the sweeping scope of applications using MMP design techniques continues to encourage manufacturers of end user products from around the globe to become MMP licensees. Since January 2006, HP, Casio, Fujitsu, Sony, Nikon, Seiko Epson, Pentax, Olympus, Kenwood, Agilent, Lexmark, Schneider Electric, NEC Corporation, Funai Electric, SanDisk, Sharp Corporation, Nokia, Bull, LEGO Group, and Denso Wave have all purchased MMP Portfolio licenses.

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