Federal Jury Awards Katana $9.2 Million in Damages against GlobalFoundries

Austin, Texas — A federal jury in the Western District of Texas has awarded $9.2 million in damages to Katana Silicon Technologies LLC (Katana) in a patent infringement case against GlobalFoundries, Inc., GlobalFoundries U.S. Inc., and GlobalFoundries U.S. 2 LLC (collectively “GlobalFoundries”), a semiconductor manufacturing company. Carter Arnett PLLC represented Katana in this case.

“We are proud that we had the stamina and patience that allowed us to protect Katana’s important innovations. The invention disclosed in the patent at issue here was a major contribution to the state of the art in FinFETs, the most important building block of the vast majority of modern semiconductor chips," said Khaled Fekih-Romdhane, manager of Katana. “The jury’s unanimous verdict reinforces the strength of Katana’s technology and the importance of enforcing intellectual property rights.”

Previously, GlobalFoundries filed a request for the USPTO to reexamine the US Patent 6,291,861 B1. After consideration of GlobalFoundries’s request and arguments filed by Katana, the USPTO confirmed the validity of every challenged claim in a Notice of Intent to Issue Ex Parte Reexamination Certificate issued August 26, 2024.

On October 7, 2022, the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied the institution of Inter Partes Review (IPR) IPR2022-00763. GlobalFoundries had filed the IPR seeking to invalidate US Patent 6,291,861 B1.

On February 24, 2022, Katana Silicon Technologies LLC (KST) filed a patent infringement complaint in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas against Globalfoundries. The case number is 6:22-cv-00191. The patents at issue, including US Patent 6,291,861 B1, relate to state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing and chip packaging technologies such as the fabrication of Fin Field-Effect Transistors (FinFETs) and through-silicon vias (TSVs). KST acquired its portfolio of patents from several world-leading semiconductor companies.