Intel Corporation v. Tela Innovations, Inc. CAFC

In May 2018, Intel filed suit against Tela Innovations, Inc., seeking multiple declaratory judgments from the Northern District of California, including noninfringement rulings as to six Tela chip design patents. Tela moved to transfer the case to Delaware, citing a forum selection clause in a nondisclosure agreement that the parties had signed, concurrently moving to dismiss for lack of a justiciable controversy between the parties. The court denied those motions, triggering a December 19 answer to Intel’s complaint by Tela. On that same day, and also in the Northern District of California, Tela filed separate cases accusing Acer (3:18-cv-07615), ASUSTek (5:18-cv-07616), and Micro-Star (3:18-cv-07617) of infringing an overlapping set of five chip design patents. The accused products are “laptops, desktops, computer tablets, all-in-one PCs, processors, notebooks, board-level computers, and servers, which contain an Intel microprocessor or printed circuit board using Intel’s Tri-Gate technology at a 22nm process node, a 14nm process node, or smaller”. A fourth complaint, filed against Lenovo (1:18-cv-02025) in the District of Delaware, contains analogous infringement allegations.

In May 2018, Intel filed suit against Tela Innovations, Inc., seeking multiple declaratory judgments from the Northern District of California, including noninfringement rulings as to six Tela chip design patents. Tela moved to transfer the case to Delaware, citing a forum selection clause in a nondisclosure agreement that the parties had signed, concurrently moving to dismiss for lack of a justiciable controversy between the parties. The court denied those motions, triggering a December 19 answer to Intel’s complaint by Tela. On that same day, and also in the Northern District of California, Tela filed separate cases accusing Acer (3:18-cv-07615), ASUSTek (5:18-cv-07616), and Micro-Star (3:18-cv-07617) of infringing an overlapping set of five chip design patents. The accused products are “laptops, desktops, computer tablets, all-in-one PCs, processors, notebooks, board-level computers, and servers, which contain an Intel microprocessor or printed circuit board using Intel’s Tri-Gate technology at a 22nm process node, a 14nm process node, or smaller”. A fourth complaint, filed against Lenovo (1:18-cv-02025) in the District of Delaware, contains analogous infringement allegations.