News: Microelectronics
21 March 2025
USPTO gives ruling on EPC patent disputed by Innoscience
Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA — which makes enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) and integrated circuits for power management applications — says that the United States Patent Office (USPTO) has strengthened its US Patent No.8,350,294 by adding two new patent claims that are fundamental to commercial enhancement-mode GaN devices. However, the USPTO has also cancelled two claims that were the basis for the decision by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) that China-based Innoscience (Suzhou) Technology Holding Co Ltd infringed the patent. EPC will appeal the cancellation of these two claims.
The ITC’s limited exclusion order barring the importation of infringing Innoscience products into the USA remains in full effect and continues to be enforced. The two new patent claims granted to EPC by the USPTO also form the basis for future infringement claims against Innoscience, says EPC.
Innoscience says that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO’s) final decision finds that “all the asserted claims of the [EPC] ’294 patent are invalid because they pertain to old gallium nitride technology that had existed in the prior art for a long time before the patents were filed”. This invalidates the claims of the only patent remaining in the dispute launched by EPC at the ITC, reckons Innoscience, marking that it has “achieved victory in the two-year long patent war launched by EPC”.
EPC launched the lawsuit against Innoscience at the ITC in May 2023, alleging infringement of the ’294 patent and three other EPC patents. During the litigation, EPC withdrew two of the four patents, and a third patent was found by the ITC to not be infringed. The ITC, however, determined that partial asserted claims of the ’294 patent are valid and infringed. Innoscience disagreed with this ITC ruling and appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on 31 January. Innoscience believes that the ITC made errors in its ruling of the ’294 patent and thus should be overturned.
US ITC confirms Innoscience’s infringement of EPC’s patent
Innoscience claims victory over EPC’s ’508 patent in ITC’s initial decision
US ITC finds key EPC patents valid and foundational patent infringed by Innoscience
US Patent Office reviewing validity of two EPC patents asserted against Innoscience
Innoscience responds to EPC’s lawsuits filed at US ITC and federal courts
