Fairchild Litigation Information

Company Principles

Fairchild Semiconductor respects the legitimate intellectual property interests of our competitors. We also believe in the ability to vigorously defend our own patents against infringement and to compete in markets where we have the right to do so.

Power Integrations Litigation Information

Fairchild has profound disagreements with Power Integrations over the validity and scope of several lawsuits which began in 2004 against Fairchild and System General.

Fairchild's commitment to our customers:

• We continue to support this business and have voluntarily withdrawn products affected by the 2004 lawsuit or the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) from the U.S. market and have been offering replacement products since 2006.

In 2006 we introduced a new series of Green FPS™ e-Series™ PWM controllers to avoid possible disruption for our customers. These parts are not affected by the 2004 lawsuit and have not been mentioned in Power Integrations' latest lawsuit. System General (SG) also introduced alternative products not affected by the 2006 ITC order against SG.

• We continue to stand behind our products. Our worldwide terms and conditions of sale include industry-standard indemnification for patent infringement. For products affected by the 2004 lawsuit, we have voluntarily limited this indemnification. Otherwise, we continue to offer standard indemnification on all our products, including all Green FPS™ e-Series™ PWM controllers and all SG products.

Status of Lawsuits

2010 Lawsuit brought by Fairchild against Power Integrations in China

We recently filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Power Integrations, Inc. in the People's Republic of China. Fairchild is seeking a permanent injunction preventing the sale, manufacture or use in China, or the importation into China, of Power Integrations products alleged to infringe four Chinese patents, including products in the TinySwitch II, TinySwitch III, LinkSwitch II, LinkSwitch XT and TOPSwitch GX product families. The company is also seeking monetary damages. The lawsuit was filed in Suzhou Intermediate Court.

2009 Lawsuit brought by Power Integrations against Fairchild & System General

On November 4, 2009, Power Integrations filed a lawsuit against Fairchild & System General in the United States District Court, Northern District of California.

There are two Power Integrations patents now asserted against Fairchild in the lawsuit:: No. 6,538,908 entitled "Method & Apparatus Providing a Multi-Function Terminal for a Power Supply Controller" [PDF]; and; No. 6,212,079 entitled "Method & Apparatus for Improving Efficiency in a Switching Regulator at Light Loads" [PDF].

These two patents previously were asserted in a lawsuit filed by Power Integrations against SG on June 28, 2004. That lawsuit was eventually dismissed on May 23, 2008 at the request of both parties.

Fairchild has also asserted a patent against Power Integrations in this lawsuit:: No. 5,747,977 entitled "Switching Regulator Having Low Power Mode Responsive to Load Power Consumption" [PDF].

2008 Lawsuit brought by Fairchild against Power Integrations

Fairchild/System General initiated a lawsuit in October 2008 against Power Integrations for infringement of three patents related to primary side regulation in PWM power conversion products. We believe at least the following Power Integrations LinkSwitch II products infringe one or more of the asserted Fairchild/System General patents:

LNK603PG/DG	LNK613PG/DG	LNK604PG/DG	LNK614PG/DG
LNK615PG/DG	LNK606PG/GG	LNK616PG/GG	LNK632DG
LNK623	LNK624	LNK625	LNK626
LNK605PG/DG	SC1097	SC1098	SC1103

Fairchild/System General patents asserted against Power Integrations:

No. 7,259,972 entitled "Primary-Side-Control Power Converter Having Switching Controller Using Frequency Hopping and Voltage and Current Control Loops" [PDF]; and

No. 7,352,595 entitled "Primary-Side Controlled Switching Regulator" [PDF].

2008 Lawsuit brought by Power Integrations against Fairchild/System General

Power Integrations filed this lawsuit in May 2008 against Fairchild/System General. In this lawsuit, Power Integrations had asserted three U.S. patents: No. 6,107,851 [PDF], No. 6,249,876 [PDF], and No. 7,110,270 [PDF] against certain Fairchild/System General parts.

'851 PATENT - Offline Converter with Integrated Softstart and Frequency Jitter

The Power Integrations '851 patent is entitled "Offline Converter with Integrated Softstart and Frequency Jitter." Power Integrations asserted claims 11, 17, and 18 of the '851 patent.

At Fairchild's request, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has reexamined the validity of a number of claims of the '851 patent. In November 2010, the U.S. Patent Office completed its reexamination, leaving claims 11 and 17 cancelled, and claim 16 amended. (Claim 18 was not subject to this reexamination since it had not been asserted against Fairchild when the reexamination request was made. Fairchild believes that claim 18 is invalid and not infringed by the accused Fairchild/System General parts.)

'876 PATENT - Frequency Jittering Control for Varying the Switching Frequency of a Power Supply

The Power Integrations '876 patent is entitled "Frequency Jittering Control for Varying the Switching Frequency of a Power Supply." Power Integrations has asserted claims 1 and 21 of the '876 patent.

At Fairchild's request, the United States Patent and Trademark Office is reexamining the validity of a variety of claims of the '876 patent. In July 2009, the U.S. Patent Office issued a Final Office Action [PDF] rejecting claim 1 as invalid (claim 21 was not subject to this reexamination since it had not been asserted against Fairchild when the reexamination request was made. Fairchild believes that claim 21 is invalid and not infringed by the accused Fairchild/System General parts.)

In response to the Patent Office’s rejection, Power Integrations has amended claim 1 but the Patent Office has rejected this amended claim, too. Power Integrations has attempted to appeal this rejection, but the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences had ruled in favor of the examiner, affirming the rejection.

'270 PATENT - Method and Apparatus for Maintaining a Constant Load Current with line Voltage in a SMPS

The Power Integrations '270 patent is entitled "Method and Apparatus for Maintaining a Constant Load Current with line Voltage in a Switch Mode Power Supply." Power Integrations has asserted claims 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the '270 patent.

Fairchild requested the United States Patent Office to reexamine the validity of all of the asserted claims. After initially rejecting the claims, the U.S. Patent Office withdrew it rejection. Fairchild maintains that claims 6, 7, 8, and 9 are invalid and not infringed by the accused Fairchild/System General parts.

2004 Lawsuits brought by Power Integrations against Fairchild & System General

Lawsuit Against Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild was found to infringe certain Power Integrations patents and final Judgment was entered against Fairchild January 26, 2011. Fairchild is appealing the judgment. Of the four PI patents at issue in the case, one has now expired, the U.S. Patent Office has closed reexamination on another patent confirming only a single tried claim and the U.S. Patent Office has issued Final Office Actions rejecting claims from each of the remaining unexpired Power Integrations patents. As a result, all but that one claim from the three unexpired patents that Fairchild was found to infringe has been rejected in Final Office Actions.

As a part of the lawsuit, on May 13, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware issued a permanent injunction prohibiting Fairchild or its subsidiaries from making, using, selling or offering to sell in the United States, or importing into the United States, or inducing or contributing to the same by third parties, any of the products listed in the permanent injunction order. Even before that injunction went into effect, Fairchild had voluntarily withdrawn affected products from the U.S. market and has been offering replacement products since 2006 (see above).

Lawsuit and ITC Case Against System General
Power Integrations' separate lawsuit against System General, which also began in 2004, was dismissed in 2008. This dismissal followed the first reexamination office actions by the U.S. Patent Office rejecting all of the claims of all Power Integrations patents asserted in the lawsuit. In 2006, while the lawsuit was pending and before the U.S. Patent Office rejected the patents, Power Integrations obtained an exclusion order from the ITC, based on two of the four patents involved in the lawsuit. (Power Integrations withdrew the other two patents during the ITC proceedings, but had not withdrawn them from the lawsuit when it was dismissed.) The existing ITC order prevents the following System General power supply controllers from being imported into the United States:

SG6840
SG6841
SG6841x3
SG6842
SG6842J
SG6843

System General no longer offers the above parts for importation or sale in the U.S. and offers replacements parts which are not affected by the ITC order. The ITC order does not affect any Fairchild Semiconductor or System General parts other than those listed above.