Samsung was hit on Monday by two separate patent infringement complaints issued from Spansion Inc., the world's No. 3 maker of flash memory chips by revenue. The complaints were filed with both the International Trade Commission (ITC) and the U.S. District Court in Delaware. Sunnyvale-based Spansion claims that more than "one hundred million mp3 players, cell phones, digital cameras and other consumer electronic devices" are made with Samsung flash memory chips that violate Spansion patents. As a result, over $30 billion worth of Samsung products that contain patented Spansion technologies were sold over the past five years.
"Spansion has patents that are fundamental to flash memory. Samsung itself has cited these patents many times in its own patent filings, underscoring industry acceptance of the fundamental nature of Spansion's (intellectual property)," Robert Melendres, Spansion's executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement.
Samsung defended itself, saying that it "forbids infringement and unauthorized use" of the intellectual property and "plans to respond actively to this litigation," according to Lee Eun-hee, a company spokeswoman. Spansion is now seeking for damages and for the court to ban sales in the U.S. of products with the affected Samsung chips.