Samsung wins Spansion patent row

KOREAN GIANT Samsung has won a victory in its battle with Spansion over alleged patent infringements.

The firm won the approval of the US International Trade Commission (ITC) yesterday, according to a report at Reuters, which saw administrative law Judge Carl Charneski find that Spansion had infringed one of its patents.

Now the ruling will go on to the ITC for formal approval, as is normal in such chip patent infringement cases.

This might be a slight victory for the Korean company as it had issues with Spansion over two patent infringements, both of which concerned its use of flash memory, and had asked for a ban on sales of Spansion's products in the US.

Spansion could be more interested in a different investigation at the ITC, however, the tit-for-tat one that it raised against Samsung and a handful of other firms including Apple, Nokia, and RIM last September.

The usual outcome in such cases is not an embargo of products, but rather a royalty license payment to the patent holder.

Still, these kinds of technology disputes keep the ITC and lots of expensive patent lawyers off the streets. µ