ESI Announces Court Orders in Patent Litigation

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a series of orders regarding Electro Scientific Industries' patent-infringement lawsuit against General Scanning Inc. The lawsuit alleges General Scanning is infringing certain claims of ESI's US patent #5,265,114 entitled "System and Method for Selectively Laser Processing a Target Structure of One or More Materials of a Multimaterial, Mutilayer Device" and patent #5,473,624 entitled "Laser System and Method for Selectively Severing Links." The patented technology is used in ESI's advanced laser repair systems that produce 64 and 256 megabit memory chips and semiconductors with embedded memory.

In the case of the first patent, the court granted ESI's motion for summary judgment of literal infringement and summary judgment on the issue of no inequitable conduct by ESI. The court denied General Scanning's motion for summary judgment of invalidity in the case of both patents.

ESI initiated litigation against General Scanning in December 1996. The lawsuit is still pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.