Friday, January 03, 2014

ON Semiconductor Sues CMOSIS Over 4 Patents

Law360: ON Semiconductor sues CMOSIS and others for allegedly infringing four of its patents covering image sensor technology, including two patents by one of CMOSIS's co-founders, Guy Meynants, according to the court documents. The U.S. patents are 5933190, 6011251, 7408195 and 7608516.

Update: ON Semi also sued San Diego-based AlliedSens LLC, CMOSIS distributor in the US, and German Leica Camera AG, which uses CMOSIS sensors into one of its cameras. ON Semiconductor sent CMOSIS a cease-and-desist letter in late September 2013, but the CMOSIS denied that its products infringe the asserted patents, the complaint says.

10 comments:

  1. The first two patents are invented by Bart Dierickx and the last two are invented by Guy Meynants

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  2. This post suggest to engineers: if you ever plan to open your own company, never develop or patent new ideas while working for somebody else. One day you might get sued for copying your own idea ;).

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    1. but if someone else does this in YOUR company, you will not be happy :)=

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    2. In any case, giving your company a million dollar idea for a $1-2K in patent bonus is always something that should be carefully considered. :)

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  3. Can someone please provide color regarding how these original 2 imec patents, 190 and 251 were transfered to OnSemi....hence the suit? This is a very strange suit since both CMOSIS and OnSemi are part of imec's development partnership programs, according to imec.

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    1. IMEC to FillFactory to Cypress Semi to ON Semi.

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  4. ON Semi sueing Leica Camera AG is frankly stupid and short sighted and shows how crazy American companies have become.

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    1. It is not a stupid strategy at all. It puts pressure on CMOSIS to settle. It is like when a mobster threatens not only you, but also your family. Not that ON is a mobster, I am just trying to explain the point.

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  5. For those still interested in this case (ED Texas - O/Ref: CMO1049): the case file can be consulted online. From the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) one learns that a request for “dismissal” has been filed and decided. Reference is made to a settlement, but no details thereof are available.

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