The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) has decided to start an investigation of integrated circuits made by MediaTek Inc. and products that contain these integrated circuits in response to a complaint by Freescale Semiconductor Inc. Freescale (Austin, Texas) claims that certain chips, and products containing them, infringe six of its patents and has asked for a general exclusion order. Freescale's complaint to USITC was filed at about the same time as it filed a lawsuit in California Federal Court alleging patent infringement
Many companies beside MediaTek (Hsinchu, Taiwan) are cited as co-respondents in the complaint including Acer, Asus, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Yamaha, Lenovo, Walmart and Amazon. The list covers the companies that designed the MediaTek ICs into electronic equipment and companies that have sold the equipment in the United States. The products referenced include mobile phones, tablet computers, televisions, Blu-Ray players and other products.
The same companies were cited in the Northern District of California lawsuit as in the ITC complaint. MediaTek and others are accused of infringing six patents covering various aspects of integrated circuit design. The suit was filed on Monday May 12, 2014.
According to reports the patents are part of approximately 5,000 semiconductor patents assigned to the company by Motorola Inc. Freescale seeks a finding of infringement and a permanent injunction against the defendants and awards for damages, the reports said.
The legal docket number is Civil Action No. 3:14-cv-02185 and the patents referenced in the case cover aspects of the layout of bond pads, timing circuitry and memory design.
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