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Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Microtune
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 27 March 2003
Judge rules on patent infringement
A jury has found in favour of Microtune in its patent infringement dispute against Broadcom Corp.
A jury in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division, has found in favour of Microtune in its patent infringement dispute against Broadcom Corp The jury found that Microtune's patent, US Patent No 5,737,035, was valid and that Broadcom is infringing
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 25 Sep 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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The jury also found that Broadcom's infringement was wilful.
Microtune expects that the court will schedule a hearing within 30 days to consider the issues of granting an injunction with respect to the infringing tuners and to determine the amount of damages to enter based on the jury's determination of infringement and validity of the '035 patent.
"We are very pleased by the outcome of the trial", said Douglas J Bartek, Chairman and CEO of Microtune.
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"Microtune pioneered the development of the single-chip tuner, the result of years of revolutionary research and development in the radio-frequency silicon field.
The jury's verdict supports the importance and value of intellectual property rights and underscores the truly inventive technology of Microtune and of our exceptional engineering team.
We remain committed to RF technology innovation and to providing our customers with superior, leading-edge products that deliver cost, power and size advantages".
Microtune's '035 patent covers the development of 'a highly integrated silicon tuner on a single microcircuit'.
It is a technological innovation that Microtune began developing in 1996 and launched publicly as the MicroTuner single-chip tuner in January 1999.
When the MicroTuner tuner was unveiled four years ago, it was hailed by the industry as one of the most significant architectural breakthroughs in TV tuner technology in the last 50 years.
As a low-cost tuner-on-chip, the MicroTuner tuner offered a miniature, universal solution for the high-speed delivery of video, voice and data across broadband communications electronics, including cable modems, set-top boxes, digital TVs, cable telephony systems and PC/TVs.
Today, Microtune currently holds an additional 23 patents covering its radio frequency (RF) technology with more than 50 patent applications pending.
"During the two-year course of this patent infringement dispute, Broadcom has filed a number of allegations against Microtune in countersuits and petitions", commented Bartek.
"Today's jury verdict clearly establishes that Microtune was the first to design and market its successful silicon tuner.
We believe that Broadcom's allegations were instigated in retaliation for Microtune's filing of our '035 patent suit and designed to test our endurance and fortitude in protecting our intellectual property.
The jury's findings today reaffirm that the technology employed in our MicroTuner silicon tuners is unique to the company".
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