Atmel Response to Infineon Patent Lawsuit

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, today announced that Infineon Technologies A.G. and Infineon Technologies North America Corporation filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Atmel in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. The company has not yet reviewed the complaint in detail. Atmel intends to vigorously defend these allegations and believes that the allegations are entirely without merit.

Infineon asserts that Atmel is infringing 11 Infineon patents. It is also seeking a declaration that three Atmel patents are either invalid or not infringed. Prior to the filing of this lawsuit, Atmel and Infineon were engaged in discussions to determine whether a licensing relationship between the companies was desirable, including whether Infineon required a license from Atmel for patents that Atmel believes Infineon may be infringing. During those negotiations, Atmel concluded that its products did not infringe any of the Infineon patents under discussion or that those patents were, in fact, invalid. In its complaint, Infineon identified five additional patents that it alleges Atmel has infringed, none of which the company has yet fully reviewed.

"With the tremendous success we have had in the microcontroller market over the past several years, this type of suit does not come as a surprise. We believe these allegations are baseless, and we intend to defend ourselves vigorously. As part of this process, we will also now evaluate, more definitively, whether Infineon has infringed our intellectual property," said Scott Wornow, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer.

About Atmel

Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, capacitive touch solutions, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry's broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions focused on industrial, consumer, communications, computing and automotive markets.

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SOURCE Atmel Corporation