CSR confident in face of US patent lawsuit against key customers
CSR plc (CSR.L) said it "will defend its [Bluetooth] products vigorously" after it had received reports a complaint had been lodged in a US Federal court naming four of its customers - Matsushita, Panasonic, Nokia and Samsung - as defendants in a patent infringement suit
The complaint refers to certain U.S. patents owned by the University of Washington claimed to be relevant to Bluetooth chips.
CSR said its legal advice was that suit was without merit in relation to its Bluetooth chips.
Nevertheless its shares were marked down for a second day in a row. By this morning they were now at 635.00p, valuing the Cambridge-headquartered group at around £763m.
The companies subject to the lawsuit - which does do not include CSR, and is limited to the US - were accused of illegally incorporating unlicensed Bluetooth chip sets in a variety of products. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an injunction barring the companies from selling those products.
The lawsuit was filed late last month in U.S. District Court in Seattle by the Washington Research Foundation, a non-profit group that seeks commercial uses and enforces patents for technology developed at Washington's universities and non-profit research institutions.
According to the lawsuit, Bluetooth-based computers, cell phones and headsets made by the companies have alegedly violated four patents for research done in the mid-1990s by Edwin Suominen when he was a student at the University of Washington.
4th January 2007
