San Jose, Calif., USA: Power Integrations announced that the patent-validity trial in its lawsuit against Fairchild Semiconductor, previously scheduled to begin this month, has been postponed. The company expects a new trial date to be set shortly; the judge overseeing the case ordered a continuance of between one and eight weeks.
Power Integrations' lawsuit, filed in October 2004 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, states that certain Fairchild power-conversion products infringe Power Integrations' patents 4,811,075; 6,107,851; 6,229,366; and 6,249,876.
In October 2006, a jury found that Fairchild willfully infringed each of the four asserted patents and awarded damages of approximately $34 million. The second trial will address Fairchild's challenges to the validity of the infringed Power Integrations' patents.