News: Microelectronics
13 December 2023
Purdue wins silicon carbide patent infringement lawsuit against ST
On 4 December, a patent lawsuit jury returned a verdict finding that STMicroelectronics infringed US patent 7,498,633 — which covers technology invented by Purdue University’s James Cooper and his graduate student/postdoctoral researcher Asmita Saha — by selling infringing silicon carbide semiconductors. The jury awarded Purdue $32.5m in past compensatory damages, plus a running royalty on future sales.
“As the university’s tech transfer and commercialization arm, we take managing and protecting Purdue intellectual property very seriously, and we hold ourselves and others accountable to the highest standards,” says Brian Edelman, president of Purdue Research Foundation (PRF). “Our preference is to reach a licensing agreement, but we have a moral obligation to protect Purdue IP, and that includes going to court to defend our rights,” he adds.
”Purdue University is a top-four patent-generating university in America. As a public land-grant institution, we support inventors and entrepreneurs to translate research to societal impact,” notes Purdue’s president Mung Chiang. “Through programs such as Purdue Innovates, we mentor students and faculty, foster a culture of discovery, license their world-changing technologies to market and protect their intellectual property rights as needed,” he adds.
As a land-grant university, Purdue University has the fiduciary and moral responsibility to protect inventions made by students and faculty. Purdue Research Foundation manages the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC), which operates the technology transfer process. OTC vets invention disclosures from university personnel, applies for patents and other intellectual property protections, and licenses innovations to established and startup companies worldwide. In the 2022 calendar year, PRF secured 192 patents from the US Patent and Trademark Office, placing Purdue fourth among all US universities.
Under the Bayh-Dole Act, contractors of inventions arising from federal government-funded research, such as US universities, own, patent and commercialize inventions through licensing. At Purdue, revenues from licensing are distributed among the inventors, their affiliated departments and the Purdue Research Foundation, which reinvests back into the commercialization and innovation ecosystem.
US Patent Office denies ST’s petition to invalidate Purdue SiC patent
