MIPS claims lead in patent case against Lexra

The US District Court for the Northern District of California issued a ruling on Friday 14th September 2001 in the ongoing patent infringement action between MIPS Technologies and Lexra.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued a ruling on Friday 14th September 2001 in the ongoing patent infringement action between MIPS Technologies and Lexra that will have considerable impact on the case as it proceeds toward trial.

The ruling arises from a special proceeding required under US patent law called a "Markman hearing", where both sides present their arguments to the court as to how they believe certain claims at issue in the lawsuit should be interpreted.

In the ruling, the court largely embraced MIPS Technologies' position overall, and wholly embraced the MIPS position with regard to the critical '976 patent.

"This is the start of the lengthy trial phase that will proceed in US district court.

We are pleased with the Markman hearing ruling as it affirms our assertion that Lexra has misappropriated substantial elements of our patented technology", said John Bourgoin, chairman and chief executive officer of MIPS Technologies.

"We remain confident in our position concerning Lexra's infringement of two of our more than 130 worldwide patents".

The Court's ruling rejected Lexra's attempt to limit the claims of United States Patent No 4,814,976 ('976) to hardware implementations of the unaligned load and store instructions (LWL, LWR, SWL, SWR) of the MIPS instruction set architecture.

MIPS Technologies has consistently maintained that the claims of the '976 patent asserted in the lawsuit are not limited to such an implementation of these instructions, but also cover software implementations like Lexra's.

The court's ruling also set forth its interpretation regarding the claims of the other patent currently involved in the lawsuit, United States Patent No 5,864,703 ('703).

At the Markman hearing, Lexra argued for interpretations of several terms that would limit the scope of the claims.

The Court rejected a number of Lexra's arguments concerning the '703 patent during the hearing, while adopting an interpretation of one claim limitation supported by Lexra.

MIPS Technologies, however, believes that it will be able to prove Lexra's infringement of the '703 patent under this interpretation.

In a related matter, the '976 patent is the subject of a re-examination before the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).

As previously reported in the press in June, the PTO confirmed the patentability of eight of the 14 claims contained in the patent and made a preliminary rejection of the remaining claims based solely on information presented by Lexra.

MIPS Technologies has recently presented its position to the PTO in a manner consistent with and supported by the Markman hearing, and looks forward to a final ruling from the PTO shortly.

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