EPC lawsuit update: Innoscience welcomes decisions made

In these decisions, the USPTO wrote that “there is a reasonable likelihood that Petitioner [Innoscience] would prevail with respect to at least one of the claims challenged in the Petition.”

The USPTO’s rulings are the latest developments related to EPC’s lawsuits against Innoscience. In these recent rulings, three judges from the USPTO have initially agreed with Innoscience, that the EPC patents that Innoscience challenged at the USPTO are invalid. In at least one case, Innoscience argued to the USPTO that the challenged EPC patent was invalid, based on a prior patent of an EPC cofounder/inventor when he was at International Rectifier, and on a preliminary basis, according to the institution decision, the USPTO agreed with Innoscience. In both proceedings at the USPTO, Innoscience has described multiple reasons why the two EPC patents are invalid, and for virtually every argument on invalidity, the USPTO initially agreed. Next, the USPTO will receive additional briefing and make a final determination by March 20, 2025.

In May 2023, EPC initiated legal proceedings against Innoscience in both the US International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, DC and a US district court in California, alleging infringement of four EPC patents by certain Innoscience GaN devices. In response, Innoscience promptly denied EPC’s allegations of infringement as well as the validity of the EPC patents. Innoscience initiated defences on multiple fronts, including the filing of inter partes review (IPR) petitions in the USPTO, challenging the validity of all of the asserted patents. The district court litigation was halted pending resolution of the ITC case, and during the ITC investigation, EPC withdrew two of its four original patents, giving up half of its case, and the other two patents are now at the risk of being invalidated and cancelled by the USPTO. The ITC also held a hearing on these two remaining patents in February/March 2024, and the ITC will issue initial determination by June 3, 2024, with a final determination due by October 3, 2024, which may be subject to extensions of time.

Innoscience is confident that it will achieve an eventual full victory in the dispute with EPC.

The company is also in a legal dispute with Infineon.