ITC ALJ Issues Win for AMD

Served as lead trial counsel to defend AMD in a massive ITC action brought against AMD by its competitor Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Realtek accused AMD of infringing three patents relating to integrated circuit designs. AMD faced an exclusion order and a cease-and-desist order at the ITC. Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Cameron Elliot’s decision found that all asserted claims of two of the patents were invalid for multiple reasons. For the third patent, he ruled that all asserted claims were not infringed by AMD, and that all but one of those claims were also invalid. ALJ Elliot also found that Realtek had not proven the existence of the economic prong of domestic industry—a rare outcome at the ITC. The win is significant for AMD because dozens of its product families were implicated. It also sends a signal to non-U.S. companies that the ITC’s domestic-industry requirement has teeth and cannot be assumed to exist based merely on a patentee’s alleged licenses with U.S.-based entities.