GSI (Sunnyvale, Calif) also announced that the USInternational Trade Commission (ITC) said last week it would formallyinvestigate a patent infringement complaint filed last month against the companyby Cypress (San Jose, Calif)
GSI said its complaint against Cypress, filed in US DistrictCourt for the Northern District of California, alleges that Cypress and otherco-conspirators engaged in anti-competitive, collusive and conspiratorialconduct that violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act and also constitutesunlawful restraint of trade and unfair competition under California law. The allegedco-conspirators mentioned in the complaint include Micron Technology Inc, IntegratedDevice Technology Inc, NEC Corp, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Hitachi Ltd, andRenesas Technology Corp.
The complaint alleges that Cypress and the other companiesmanipulated the SRAM market by setting standards amongst themselves in a closedsetting, rather than using an open standards body such as Jedec.
The companies allegedly banded together "to protecttheir members' SRAM market shares by excluding their competitors from havingaccess to information describing the specific form, fit, and functionspecifications and information that would otherwise be available in an open andpublic standards body such as Jedec or IEEE," the complaint states."Their illegal combination and conspiracy permitted the consortium membersto control the market by keeping networking SRAM prices high, locking in thelimited number of consumers of networking SRAM before competitors could developand market competing products and stalling the introduction of competitiveproducts."
The high-performance SRAM devices at issue in the districtcourt case are known as fast synchronous quad data rate (QDR) SRAMs and doubledata rate (DDR) SRAMs, GSI said.
The GSI complaint seeks undetermined damages, an injunctionprohibiting the continuation of the allegedly illegal business practices andrecovery of GSI's attorneys' fees and costs, GSI said.
Cypress earlier this year filed a complaint against GSI inUS District Court for the District of Minnesota alleging five counts of patentinfringement, principally related to GSI's Sigma Quad and Sigma DDR families ofSRAM products. The ITC complaint alleges infringement by GSI of four patentsand also alleges infringement by two of GSI's distributors and three of GSI'scustomers who allegedly incorporate GSI's SRAMs in their products.
The Cypress ITC complaint seeks a limited exclusion orderexcluding the allegedly infringing SRAMs, and products containing them, fromentry into the US and permanent orders directing GSI and the other proposedrespondents to cease and desist from selling or distributing such products inthe US.
GSI said it believes that it has "meritoriousdefenses" to Cypress infringement claims and intends to defend itselfvigorously in the ITC proceeding while also vigorously prosecuting itsantitrust claims against Cypress.
This story was originally posted by EE Times.
Firm alleges collusion by SRAM vendors
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