ITC, Cypress, GSI, SRAM ITC to investigate SRAM vendor

SAN FRANCISCO— The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) said last week it would formally investigate a patent infringement complaint filed last month against the company by Cypress Semiconductor Corp., GSI said Monday (July 25).

GSI (Sunnyvale, Calif.) also said that last week it filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court accusing Cypress (San Jose, Calif.) of carrying out an unlawful conspiracy to monopolize the market for high-performance SRAMs. The high-performance SRAM devices at issue are known as fast synchronous quad data rate (QDR) SRAMs and double data rate (DDR) SRAMs, GSI said.

GSI said its complaint against Cypress, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Cypress and other unnamed co-conspirators engaged in anti-competitive, collusive and conspiratorial conduct that violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act and also constitutes unlawful restraint of trade and unfair competition under California law. The complaint seeks damages, in an amount to be determined at trial, a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the continuation of the unfair and illegal business practices and recovery of GSI's attorneys' fees and costs, GSI said.

GSI said it believes that it has "meritorious defenses" to Cypress infringement claims and intends to defend itself vigorously in the ITC proceeding while also vigorously prosecuting its antitrust claims against Cypress.
ITC, Cypress, GSI, SRAM ITC to investigate SRAM vendor