US court rejects Samsung-Matsushita patent lawsuit

Seoul, Aug 28: A US federal court has ruled that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.' did not infringe on each other's memory chip patents, Samsung said on Monday.

The ruling by the court on Friday was related to one of a series of patent disputes between the two firms as they compete in the market for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, used in personal computers, as well as flat panels.

In the lawsuit filed in May 2002, Matsushita sought 0 million in damages from Samsung, accusing the South Korean company of infringing on three DRAM technology patents.

''The New Jersey federal court in the United States ruled that both Samsung and Matsushita had not infringed on each other's patents,'' Samsung, the world's largest memory chip maker, told the Korea Exchange in a filing on Monday.

Matsushita, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, was not immediately available for comment.

In January, Japan-based Matsushita sued Samsung in relation to memory chip patents in a U.S. court in Texas, after Samsung filed a similar lawsuit, also in Texas, last September.

Both companies have also been sparring as makers of flat panel displays, used for TVs and computer monitors.

In December, Samsung SDI Co. , the world's top plasma display panel maker and an affiliate of Samsung Electronics, filed suit against Matsushita Electric in a U.S.

federal court in Los Angeles, claiming the Japanese firm violated nine patents relating to plasma display panels.

Shares in Samsung were up 0.6 percent at 650,000 won by 0200 GMT, while Matsushita was down 0.6 percent at 2,460 yen.

Reuters