Texas Instruments Patent Appeal Rejected In Japan's High Court

Japan's Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Texas Instruments Inc. seeking compensation for an alleged patent violation by Japanese computer giant Fujitsu Ltd., a court spokesman said Apr. 11. Texas Instruments alleged that Fujitsu did not pay royalties after using its "Kilby 275" patent, a modified version of the original U.S. Kilby patent approved in 1964 that protected a circuit-insulation technology. According to a Texas Instruments press release, the court said the patent is not infringed by Fujitsu in manufacturing its 1-Mb and 4-Mb dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) and its 36K erasable, programmable read-only memories. Further, "This decision does not affect the terms and conditions of any of TI's existing cross-licensing agreements or the company's royalty revenue. TI expects to continue to receive an ongoing stream of royalty revenue from its license agreements, most of which have 10-year lives and were signed after the Tokyo District Court originally determined non-infringement in 1994. The Kilby patent expires in 2001 and was, therefore, not expected to be relevant to future license agreements," the release states.