Hynix Semiconductor Inc. was ordered by a Tokyo court today to halt its NAND flash memory sales in Japan after Toshiba Corp. filed a patent lawsuit against the South Korean rival, according to news wire report from Reuters and other outlets.
According to Reuters, citing Toshiba as a source, South Korea's Hynix plans to appeal the ruling. Following the court decision, Hynix's shares briefly fell as much as 3.7 percent.
A spokesman for the Tokyo District Court also said it had ordered Hynix to pay $66,550 (7.84 million yen) in damages to Toshiba, the world's second-largest maker of NAND-type flash memory chips behind Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the report said.
In November 2004 (http://www.reed-electronics.com/electronicnews/article/CA479078) Toshiba filed two suits against Hynix Japan for allegedly infringing on its semiconductor memory patents. One suit was filed in the Tokyo District Court against Hynix Japan for alleged infringement of Toshiba's three NAND flash memory patents.
In the U.S., Toshiba filed suit against Hynix and its U.S. subsidiaries for infringement of three DRAM and four NAND flash memory patents in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
According to Toshiba, the legal action stemmed from a patent cross-licensing agreement made between the companies in August 1996, which expired Dec. 31, 2002. Prior to expiration, the companies began negotiating an extension of the agreement. Since a satisfactory conclusion was not reached, Toshiba pursued legal recourse.
Hynix NAND flash memory sales surged by more than 500 percent in 2005 thanks to the popularity of the iPod nano music player, propelling the company into third place in the market last year, and putting it into contention with its Japanese rival for the No.2 rank in 2006 according to El Segundo, Calif.-based market research firm iSuppli Corp.
Earlier this month four Korean Hynix executives agreed plead guilty and to serve jail time in the United States for participating in a global conspiracy to fix DRAM prices.
