RE-examination for pending Magma patent dispute
Magma Design Automation Inc. said in a statement that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has been asked to re-examine U.S. Patents No. 6,453,446 and 6,725,438 (the '446 and '438 patents). The patents are two of the three patents involved in a patent dispute between Magma and Synopsys Inc. that is pending before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The PTO has 90 days from the date of the request to determine whether to initiate re-examination proceedings. The requests for re-examination were filed by a third party, and were not filed by, on behalf of, or at the request of Magma. Magma received notice of the requests for re-examination on Aug. 22, 2006 via U.S. Postal Service. Magma has been prevented from seeking re-examination of these patents as the result of a court order that was requested by Synopsys and issued by the U.S. District Court on Dec. 1, 2005.
The other patent involved in the litigation, U.S. Patent Number 6,378,114 (the '114 patent), is the subject of a separate request for re-examination in which all the claims were rejected earlier this month in an office action by the PTO. That action did not invalidate that patent but is an intermediate step in the re-examination process that may ultimately result in the patent being deemed invalid.
The ownership of the '114, '446 and '438 patents was the subject of a recent trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. At that trial, Synopsys claimed to be the sole owner of the patents while Magma asserted the patents are jointly owned by Synopsys and IBM. The court has not yet issued a ruling on ownership of the patents.
