Samsung seeks redress in U.S. court

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s biggest maker of computer-memory chips, sued its Japanese rival Renesas Technology Corp. over two U.S. semiconductor patents.
Samsung filed the patent-infringement complaint Friday in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. The Korea-based company asked for cash compensation and an order to stop Tokyo-based Renesas from using the inventions.
Akiko Ishiyama, a spokeswoman at Renesas’s U.S. unit in San Jose, California, didn’t immediately return a voicemail message seeking comment on the suit. Renesas, a joint venture between Hitachi Ltd and Mitsubishi Electric Corp, was the world’s sixth-largest chipmaker in 2006, just ahead of Hynix Semiconductor Inc., according to research firm iSuppli.
This is not the first legal dispute to erupt between Korean and Japanese chipmakers. In March, Toshiba Corp. and Hynix ended a patent war and signed a cross-licensing deal. Renesas, a joint venture of Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp., sued Samsung in the same court in January, claiming it violated four computer chip patents. Renesas is also pursuing a patent complaint against Samsung in the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Yesterday shares of Samsung fell 5,000 won to 582,000 won ($630.55) in Korea. Semiconductor sales have increased worldwide, led by chips used in automobiles and mobile phones. Sales will rise 10 percent to $273.8 billion this year, the San Jose, California-based Semiconductor Industry Association said in February. The case is Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd v. Renesas Technology Corp., 1:07cv251, U.S. District Court, Delaware (Wilmington).