Atmel Comments that STMicroelectronics Lawsuit has No Merit.Business Editors SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 25, 2000 Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :ATML ATML Automatic Test Markup Language ATML Automated Test Markup Language ) commented today on the press release issued this morning by STMicroelectronics (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscope) A microscope that can image down to the atomic level. An STM uses a piezoelectric tube with a tiny sharp tip at the end that is moved within nanometers of the object being sampled. ), that STMicroelectronics has filed a lawsuit against Atmel for patent infringement. Atmel has not yet been served with STMicroelectronics' complaint, and therefore is unable to comment on the specifics of the complaint. However, Julie Mar-Spinola, Atmel's Director of Litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. and Intellectual Property Counsel, states that, "Of the patents that have been identified by STMicroelectronics, we have obtained competent legal opinion that we do not infringe any of the patent claims. Atmel will defend itself vigorously against these meritless claims, which include patents that have long since expired. Atmel will continue to defend its intellectual property rights against unfair competition." George Perlegos, Atmel's President and Chief Executive Officer, added, "Often, competitors that are frightened of you in today's modern world will sue, which is regrettable. It is ironic that a European company is seeking competitive advantage through U.S. courts. Unfortunately, in today's world, legal actions are often one of the most important forms of corporate flattery. I believe this lawsuit is in direct response to the major inroads inroads Noun, pl make inroads into to start affecting or reducing: my gambling has made great inroads into my savings inroads npl to make inroads into [+ we are making with major European companies. I regret the ungentlemanly tactics of ST's legal team." Atmel is practicing its own technology and is the owner of the EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM) A rewritable memory chip that holds its content without power. Although EEPROMs spawned flash memory, EEPROMs are byte addressable at the write level, whereas flash chips must erase a block of bytes before rewriting. patents to generate high voltage from 1.8 volt, 3.0 volt or 5.0 volt supplies all used in EEPROM products. Atmel asserts that is the owner of the original microcontroller with EEPROM technology on-board, which is used by all telephone Smart Card ICs. Additionally, Atmel has fundamental patent recognition for Flash and Silicon Germanium technology, which are of key importance for all of today and tomorrow's wireless and network communications products. Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California San Jose (IPA: /ˌsænhoʊˈzeɪ/) is the third-largest city in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States. It is the county seat of Santa Clara County. with principal manufacturing facilities in Colorado Springs, Colorado The City of Colorado Springs is the second most populous city (after Denver) in the state of Colorado and the 48th most populous city in the United States.[4] The city is the county seat of El Paso County. , Irving, Texas, Grenoble, Nantes and Rousset, France and Heilbronn, Germany. Atmel designs, manufactures and markets on a worldwide basis advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory, and RF semiconductors. Atmel is also a leading provider of system-level integration semiconductor solutions using advanced CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Pronounced "c-moss." The most widely used integrated circuit design. It is found in almost every electronic product from handheld devices to mainframes. , BiCMOS, BiPolar and SiGe process technologies. Atmel product and financial information can be retrieved from its Fax-on Demand service. In North America call 1(800) 292-8635. Internationally from a fax phone, dial 1(408) 441-0732. Requests may be sent via e-mail to literature@atmel.com or by visiting Atmel's website at http://www.atmel.com. Except for historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release are forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the impact of competitive products and pricing, timely design acceptance by our customers, timely introduction of new technologies, ability to ramp new products into volume, industry wide shifts in supply and demand for semiconductor products, industry overcapacity, effective and cost efficient utilization of manufacturing capacity, financial stability in foreign markets, ability to integrate and manage acquisitions, and other risks detailed from time to time in the Atmel's SEC reports and filings. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion