On March 30, third-party complaints brought by individual inventor Daniel L. Flamm against Global Foundries (5:16-cv-01578), Intel (5:16-cv-01579), Maxim Integrated Products (5:16-cv-01580), and Micron Technology (5:16-cv-01581) were severed into separate actions in the Northern District of California. Flamm lodged the complaints in answer to a declaratory judgment brought against him by Lam Research (5:15-cv-01277) just over a year ago, in March 2015. Lam’s complaint sought a declaratory judgment that it does not infringe three patents (5,711,849; 6,017,221; RE40,264) owned by Flamm. The three patents generally relate to processes used in semiconductor fabrication, and around September 2014, Flamm’s attorneys had sent assertion letters to multiple customers of Lam’s semiconductor manufacturing equipment, motivating Lam to file suit.