GlobalFoundries files lawsuits against TSMC in US & Germany

The lawsuits were filed in the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), the U.S. Federal District Courts in the Districts of Delaware and the Western District of Texas, and the Regional Courts of Dusseldorf and Mannheim in Germany. In the lawsuits, GlobalFoundries seeks orders that will prevent semiconductors produced with the infringing technology by TSMC from being imported into the U.S. and Germany. These lawsuits require the US company to name certain major customers of TSMC and downstream electronics companies, who, in most cases, are the actual importers of the products that incorporate the infringing TSMC technology. GF also seeks significant damages from TSMC based on the alleged unlawful use of its proprietary technology in its tens of billions of dollars of sales. “While semiconductor manufacturing has continued to shift to Asia, GF has bucked the trend by investing heavily in the American and European semiconductor industries, spending more than USD 15 billion dollars in the last decade in the U.S. and more than USD 6 billion in Europe's largest semiconductor manufacturing fabrication facility. These lawsuits are aimed at protecting those investments and the US and European-based innovation that powers them,” says Gregg Bartlett, senior vice president, engineering and technology at GF, in a press release. “For years, while we have been devoting billions of dollars to domestic research and development, TSMC has been unlawfully reaping the benefits of our investments. This action is critical to halt Taiwan Semiconductor’s unlawful use of our vital assets and to safeguard the American and European manufacturing base,” Bartlett adds.