Patent Appeals Court Rules on One of Two Linear v. AATI Cases on Appeal from the USITC

Linear Technology Corporation (Nasdaq:LLTC) today announced that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its opinion affirming the US International Trade Commission (USITC) Administrative Law Judge’s (ALJ) finding that the asserted claims of one of the two Linear Technology patents that Linear had litigated against AATI were invalid over the prior art. However, the ALJ had previously also ruled that the second Linear patent was valid, and infringed by certain AATI products.

John England, Corporate and Intellectual Property Counsel for Linear, stated, "Although we are disappointed with this ruling, we note that the Court of Appeals has yet to decide on patent infringement issues brought by Linear against AATI regarding the second patent in the same USITC proceeding. The ALJ ruled that a second patent asserted by Linear against AATI was infringed (US Patent 6,580,258) by certain AATI products. The ALJ correspondingly ordered those AATI products excluded from importation into the United States. Linear, on appeal, is seeking to broaden that ruling to properly include more of AATI’s products.

"Should the Court agree with Linear, we believe it will enhance other related exclusionary proceedings brought by Linear against AATI currently pending at the USITC.”

About Linear Technology

Linear Technology Corporation, a manufacturer of high performance linear integrated circuits, was founded in 1981, became a public company in 1986 and joined the S&P 500 index of major public companies in 2000. Linear Technology products include high performance amplifiers, comparators, voltage references, monolithic filters, linear regulators, DC-DC converters, battery chargers, data converters, communications interface circuits, RF signal conditioning circuits, uModule^TM products, and many other analog functions. Applications for Linear Technology’s high performance circuits include telecommunications, cellular telephones, networking products such as optical switches, notebook and desktop computers, computer peripherals, video/multimedia, industrial instrumentation, security monitoring devices, high-end consumer products such as digital cameras and MP3 players, complex medical devices, automotive electronics, factory automation, process control, and military and space systems. For more information, visit www.linear.com.

Note: LT and LTC are registered trademarks and uModule is a trademark of Linear Technology Corporation.