Judge Rules on Motions in Rothschild Vrs. Cree Patent Lawsuit; Lawsuit to Go to Jury
Source/Type:  LIGHTimes Online - News - Staff reports

Author: LIGHTimes News Staff

May 14, 2010... Gertrude Neumark Rothschild previously filed a patent lawsuit against Cree Inc. in the United States District court in District D of Massachusetts. Rothschild alleged that Cree violated its '618 Patent and '499 Patent. The '618 Patent is entitled "Process for Doping Crystals of Wide Band Gap Semiconductors". The '499 Patent is entitled "Wide Band Gap Semiconductors Having Low Bipolar Resistivity and Method of Formation".

Cree has been one of the only major LED product companies that has not settled with Rothschild about these fundamental LED patents. Cree filed a motion to dismiss for lack of standing based on the argument that Rothschild conceived of the invention while employed at Philips Lumileds Lighting Company L.L.C., making Philips the rightful owner of the patent. In a motion to dismiss, the court may look outside the pleadings to determine if jurisdictional facts exist.

Philips however previously settled with Rothschild. Under the terms of the settlement Philips agreed to abandoned and relinquished any claim to right, title, interest in or ownership of the [patents-in-suit]." For this reason Cree's motion to dismiss was denied. Cree's motion for summary judgement of patent invalidity was also denied. Rothschild made several motions for partial summary judgement about various assertions and claims of the patents. All of these were denied. William G. Young, the district judge in the case in Massachusetts ordered the case to go before a jury.

In 20 of the 21 processes discussed in Cree's motion for summary judgement the Judge ruled that the GaN layer was epitaxially grown and therefore not a substrate. The key issue in the case may come down to whether the AlGaN layer falls within the definition of substrate. If the AlGaN Layer is ruled to be a substrate then Cree would likely be found to infringe Rothschild's patent. If not, there Cree would not be found to infringe Rothchild's patent. There is no word yet on when the jury trial will commence.

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