Asylum Research, a premier manufacturer of atomic force microscopes, announced that the federal court in Los Angeles dismissed two of the five Veeco Instruments Inc. patents from the infringement lawsuit commenced by Veeco in September 2003 and that the judge’s summary judgment order (http://www.AsylumResearch.com/sj.pdf) cast a large shadow over their remaining patents. This action eliminates 6 of 13 patent claims that Veeco brought against Asylum while all Asylum claims against Veeco remain. The court’s ruling was issued in March of this year, but had remained under seal until recently when the court lifted the seal at Asylum’s request. At the same time the court set a March 2008 date for trial on the remaining issues of the suit.
“The standards for ruling on summary judgment are incredibly high, yet the judge dismissed nearly half of Veeco’s claims,” said Dick Clark, co-founder and general counsel of Asylum Research. “We are eager to go to trial this March, as ordered by the court. We will prove we do not infringe the few remaining Veeco claims and that they do infringe the claims of our patent. We will also prove, following the lead of the court’s ruling, that each of the remaining Veeco patents is invalid for improper inventorship, among other reasons.”
Co-founder and CEO of Asylum Research Jason Cleveland commented, “Four years ago Veeco chose to pursue litigation rather than innovation. Their obvious hope was to financially starve a young competitor. That strategy has backfired and they now find themselves with a damaged portfolio and facing a possible infringement ruling for using our technology – technology that enables much faster, lower noise AFMs that will be required for Veeco to be competitive in the future. While we are obviously very happy with this victory, we look forward to finishing the job at trial.”