Irell & Manella Wins Patent Jury Verdict For Semiconductor Manufacturer ASML

Los Angeles/Newport Beach, CA -- In a victory for one of the world's leading photolithography companies, a federal district court jury in Oakland found that a patent held by Ultratech, Inc., was invalid, and that ASML Holding B.V. was not liable for infringement. Law firm Irell & Manella LLP represented ASML during the four-week trial.

ASML, based in the Netherlands and with U.S. operations in Arizona, Connecticut and other locations, specializes in optical photolithography. Its pioneering "step and scan" technology has become a standard in the manufacture of semiconductors and the company sells and licenses its systems and technology to eighteen of the top twenty chipmakers in the world, among others.

San Jose-based Ultratech originally filed suit in May 2000, charging infringement against a host of photolithography equipment makers, including Nikon and Canon. Both of those companies later chose to settle and entered into licensing agreements with Ultratech. ASML, which believed its own step-and-scan systems formed prior art, decided to fight the case in federal court.

"Ultratech's claims of infringement went to the very heart of step-and-scan technology, a technology that ASML pioneered," said Jonathan Kagan, trial counsel on the case and a partner at Irell & Manella. He noted that since 1997, ASML has recorded sales approaching $2.7 billion in the U.S. "We are very satisfied that the jury recognized that Ultratech's claim, and its patent, was meritless."

In 2001, after the suit was initiated, ASML merged with Silicon Valley Group, which developed some of the "Step and Scan" technology as a prior art.

In its decision on June 21, the Oakland jury found that Ultratech's 1996 patent was found invalid based on prior art.

"Step and Scan technology is the critical component of photolithography," said Morgan Chu, ASML's lead trial counsel. "ASML could have settled as its competitors had done, but the company's certainty that the patent was invalid was borne out by the jury."

In the Step & Scan systems, the image is transferred by moving through an illumination slit. The slit projection allows the lens manufacturers to reduce the aberration level in the projection lens, since only a "small portion" of the lens is used. The resulting lower aberrations and the scanning principle result in better uniformity for the image.

SOURCE: ASML