Cisco Wins Syntest over BIST Techniques

Case Filed: Jun 26, 2014

Origin Case: 5:12-cv-05965

Case Summary:

Sunnyvale, California-based Syntest Technologies filed a complaint against San Jose based Cisco, a manufacturer of computer networking products and services alleging that three of their U.S. patents were infringed. The complaint was filed in Nov 2012 in California Northern District Court. According to the court documents, the suit concerned Cisco, a former customer of Syntest for developing and using application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) covered by the patents-in-suit without a valid license.

Patents-in-Suit:

The patents involved in the suit were:

·        US7007213 entitled ‘Multiple-capture DFT system for detecting or locating crossing clock-domain faults during self-test or scan-test,’ issued on Feb 28, 2006

·        US7434126 entitled ‘Computer-aided design (CAD) multiple-capture DFT system for detecting or locating crossing clock-domain faults,’ issued on Oct 07, 2008

·        US7779323 entitled ‘Multiple-capture DFT system for detecting or locating crossing clock-domain faults during self-test or scan-test,’ issued on Aug 17, 2010

All the patents expire[i] by Feb 07, 2022 and as per the complaint, Syntest is the owner of these patents.

The ‘213, ‘126 and ‘323 patents relate to the detection or location of logic faults within each clock domain and logic faults crossing any two clock domains, during self-test or scan-test, in an integrated circuit or circuit assembly.

As in Complaint:

Syntest alleged that Cisco has infringed Syntest patents through the manufacture, use, sale and/or offer for sale of devices employing BIST technology including products and services associated with Cisco switch, router and network products. The products cited are: Cisco Catalyst Switches, Cisco Routers, Cisco Security Products and Cisco Access Servers that were designed and sold from 2006.

District Court Proceedings:

In Jun 09, the parties submitted ten claim construction disputes from the asserted patents following which the court opinionated that the claims were not infringed by Cisco. A week later, the judgment was rendered in favor of Cisco against Syntest.

Appeal Court:

The case is currently with the appeal court as Syntest filed a notice of appeal concerning district court’s judgment.

See 2014-1569 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

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[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.