June 11, 2012 – In an ITC case brought by Intellectual Ventures (IV) [NPE], the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) James Gildea granted respondent Elpida’s motion to add the affirmative defense of equitable estoppel, but denied the addition of an affirmative defense of “lack of entitlement to injunctive relief.”  Elpida argued that both defenses are “based on newly reviewed documents”, and indicated that the patents-in-suit were previously owned by an entity (Cirrus Logic) that is a member of a microelectronics standards organization, JDEC, and “allegedly failed to disclose the asserted patents to [the standards organization] JDEC.”  Therefore, Elpida argued, the asserted patents are unenforceable and complainant IV is precluded from injunctive relief.  The ALJ granted the motion for equitable estoppel because, “Elpida brought a motion to amend to add [an equitable estoppel] defense, based on facts learned during discovery, with approximately seven weeks of discovery remaining.  The parties have had adequate notice of [respondents'] allegations and have had ample time to conduct discovery on them.”   On July 12, 2011, IV filed suit in the ITC against respondents including Acer, ADATA, Asus, Best Buy, Dell,   Elpida,   Hynix,   Logitech,   Pantech, and Wal-Mart, alleging that the respondents’ DRAM and Flash memory products, or sale thereof, infringe the following IV patents: 5,654,932, 5,963,481, 5,982,696, 5,500,819, 5,687,132.  IV has also filed concurrent litigation over the same patents against many of the same defendants in the Western District of Seattle (2-11-cv-01145).  337-TA-803 (ITC), June 4, 2012