On May 18th, 2010 the Regional Court of Düsseldorf, which is competent to rule on patent infringement but not on patent validity, issued a first determination in favor of austriamicrosystems in the patent infringement lawsuit against Melexis (for your reference see also our press release dated March 16, 2009). This ruling applies to the sales of the Melexis part number MLX90316 in Germany.

Melexis will review the grounds for the judgment and will lodge an appeal against it with the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf. Melexis is convinced that its attacked product does not infringe the austriamicrosystems' patent and that the Regional Court ruled incorrectly.

In March 2009, Melexis initiated a claim to the Federal Patent Court in Munich, the only competent German Court for judging the patent validity. Melexis remains confident that this claim will demonstrate prior art and thus will invalidate the austriamicrosystems’ patent. The Federal Patent Court has scheduled a hearing on this nullity action for December 2010.