Harvard, yes, that Harvard, can hardly be called a patent troll. They're companies that buy patents with broad technological scopes and then file lawsuits to basically extort money from companies that build actual products.
Samsung has faced more than 400 patent infringement lawsuits in the US over the past five years, covering everything from semiconductor manufacturing to display manufacturing, and smartphones. There's another addition to that list, and it's from Harvard, that's accusing Samsung of infringing on its chip manufacturing patents.
Harvard wants Samsung to pay monetary damages
Samsung has been sued by Harvard University in a Texas federal court. The university alleges that Samsung has violated its patents on chip manufacturing, and that its methods of producing microprocessors and memory chips infringe on two patents that protect inventions from Harvard chemistry professor Roy Gordon.
The lawsuit further mentions that these patents protect “novel processes and materials for deposition of thin films that contain cobalt or tungsten metals,” adding that they are “essential to key components of numerous products such as computers and cell phones.”
The university claims that Samsung has used these patented processes to develop processors for smartphones as well as memory products. It's seeking an unspecified amount of monetary damages from the court in addition to an order that prevents Samsung from infringing on the patents.
This is far from Samsung's first rodeo. It was hit with a $303 million fine over alleged infringements of memory chip patents, faced an inquiry from the U.S. International Trade Commission over semiconductors, and has even fought patent battles against Huawei in China.
It's safe to say that this latest lawsuit goes into the pile of all of the other patent infringement lawsuits that Samsung is fighting, and it will fight this one too.
