A Western District of Texas jury returned a noninfringement verdict for Samsung and against Demaray LLC in a case that involved a $4B damages ask. A suit between Demaray and Intel in the same district ended in a dismissal with prejudice (as to Demaray’s claims of infringement) just before a trial scheduled for this past August, while trial in a Northern District of California action against Applied Materials is scheduled for this December. The jury in the Samsung case was asked to determine whether Demaray had proven infringement either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents, answering no to both, but based on the notes that the jury sent out during deliberations, the answer to the second question, involving the doctrine of equivalents, appears to have been a close one.

Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright has canceled a trial previously scheduled to start next week in his courtroom between inventor-controlled Demaray LLC and Intel after the parties filed a motion to dismiss the case (with prejudice as to Demaray’s claims of infringement). Judge Albright also formally reset trial in Demaray’s case against Samsung, now scheduled for January 29, 2024, as previewed in July discovery orders granting each side additional deposition time. Meanwhile, trial in the Northern District of California declaratory judgment action filed by Applied Materials—the reactors of which are at the center of this campaign—is set for December 2024.

Inventor-controlled Demaray LLC has sued Intel (6:20-cv-00634) and Samsung (6:20-cv-00636) in the Western District of Texas over the configuration and use of certain semiconductor manufacturing equipment, including reactive magnetron sputtering reactors. The plaintiff asserts two related patents, each naming R. Ernest Demaray as an inventor and generally related to magnetron sputtering, which is a form of physical vapor deposition (PVD) that uses magnetic and electrical fields for thin-layer deposition. The new complaints highlight the use by each defendant of reactors in the Endura product line of Applied Materials to deposit metal nitride layers as part of the fabrication process for certain semiconductor products.