(WASHINGTON, D.C.) April 8, 2008 – Heller Ehrman LLP announced that on April 3, 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has vacated a jury verdict of infringement and a permanent injunction against client, Beyond Innovation Technology Co. Ltd. (BiTEK), in a patent case originally filed by O2 Micro International Ltd. against BiTEK and two other defendants. 

In May 2006, a federal jury found that the defendants induced infringement of the asserted claims of three patents belonging to O2 Micro International Ltd. The patents pertain to DC to AC converter circuits, which are used to control the amount of power delivered to cold cathode fluorescent lamps used to backlight LCD computer and television screens, but “only if” a certain signal is above a predetermined threshold.  Heller Ehrman was not involved in the trial.

Represented by Heller Ehrman on appeal, BiTEK and the other defendants argued that the district court’s failure to construe the term “only if” was a legal error. The Federal Circuit on Thursday agreed with BiTEK and the other defendants, finding that the district court should have construed the contested claim language and remanding the case back to the district court for further proceedings.

In addition to the claim construction issue, the Federal Circuit also agreed with BiTEK and the other defendants that the jury should not have been permitted to find infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, in view of the history of the patents’ prosecution in the U.S. Patent Office.  The case is O2 Micro Intl. Ltd. v. Beyond Innovation Technology Co. Ltd. et al., 2007-1302 (Fed. Cir. 2008).

Heller Ehrman shareholders Johnny C. Chiu (Washington, D.C.), Stanley Young (Silicon Valley) and Joshua Rosenkranz (New York) represent BiTEK.  Rosenkranz is a member of the firm’s Appeals and Strategy group. Chiu and Young are members of the firm’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice, which consists of more than 80 IP litigators.  Heller Ehrman’s IP clients include industry leaders such as Allergan, Apple, CA, Depomed, Genentech, Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Palm, Symantec, Texas Instruments, Visa and Yahoo!