SiOnyx vs Hamamatsu Lawsuit Outcome

Law360: The Boston, MA jury's verdict is said to be entirely in favor of SiOnyx LLC, the Black Silicon company, co-founded by Harvard professor Eric Mazur and the President and Fellows of Harvard College (see the previous post here). The jury found that U.S. subsidiary Hamamatsu Corp. breached its NDA with SiOnyx and infringed its US8080467 patent on special laser-processed silicon.

"The jury awarded SiOnyx $796,469 in damages on its breach of contract claim and $580,640 on its claim for unjust enrichment, and rejected Hamamatsu's defense that SiOnyx's claims were filed too late.

The jury also found that Japanese parent company Hamamatsu Photonics KK infringed the patent willfully, but awarded no damages for patent infringement. Moreover, the jury found that SiOnyx co-founder James Carey should have been listed as a co-inventor on nine patents filed by Hamamatsu.

In 2006, SiOnyx demonstrated its technology to Hamamatsu, only to have the Japanese company file its own patent applications on that same technology, breaching the companies' mutual nondisclosure agreement, according to the complaint.

Hamamatsu had acted like it was entering into a collaborative relationship with SiOnyx to explore using the black silicon in its commercial semiconductor products, but began selling products using the technology without giving credit to the actual inventors, according to the complaint."

Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. US patents 9,614,109; 9,293,499; 9,190,551; 8,994,135; 8,916,945; 8,884,226; 8,742,528; 8,629,485; and 8,564,087 should include SiOnyx co-founder James Carey as co-inventor, according to the jury.