MRSI Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Palomar Technologies

Company asserts rival infringes four separate patents in connection with its high-precision manufacturing products.

Taking action against what it asserts is pervasive and repeated infringement of four separate U.S. patents it owns, leading precision manufacturer MRSI Systems LLC has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Palomar Technologies, Inc. in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.

The suit alleges that Palomar’s die, wire, and wedge bonder products infringe MRSI’s U.S. Patent No. 7,324,710, titled “Method and Device for Determining Nominal Data for Electronic Circuits by Capturing a Digital Image and Compare with Stored Nominal Data”; U.S. Patent No. 9,032,611, titled “Apparatus for Generating Patterns on Workpieces”; U.S. Patent No. 9,648,795, titled “Pick-and-Place Tool”; and U.S. Patent No. 7,109,510, titled “Method and Apparatus for Aligning a Substrate on a Stage.” These patents cover core functionalities used in Palomar’s main product lines.  International law firm Crowell & Moring LLP filed the suit on behalf of MRSI.

MRSI is a leading manufacturer of fully automated, high-precision, high-speed die bonding and epoxy dispensing systems. The company’s products deliver the best financial returns in the industry while integrating seamlessly into customer production systems. MRSI’s key markets include telecom/datacom (data center), aerospace & defense, medical devices, computers and peripherals, and industrial.

“As parts get smaller and accuracies and volumes increase, value-based solutions providing superior performance is becoming extremely critical for leading companies worldwide, and our precision products are regarded as industry benchmarks, based on our own proprietary technology,” said Cyriac Devasia, MRSI’s VP, Engineering.

"We pride ourselves as a leading innovation company that will thoroughly enforce its patent rights to protect our on-going investment in groundbreaking, high-speed, highly accurate and reliable placement technology and capabilities,” said Michael Chalsen, MRSI’s President. “Palomar’s continued infringement of our protected technology must stop, and we found no alternative but to bring this lawsuit to protect our intellectual property.”

MRSI has also continued to vigorously challenge an ongoing patent lawsuit filed by Palomar in 2015 in Southern California and that MRSI successfully transferred to its home district court in Boston, Massachusetts in 2018 (see Palomar Technologies, Inc. v. MRSI Systems, LLC, Case No. 1:18-cv-10236-FDS (D. Mass.)).  MRSI maintains that the Palomar patent asserted in that lawsuit, U.S. Patent No. 6,776,327, is invalid on numerous grounds, including because the patent claims are directed to ineligible subject matter, and are invalid in light of prior art as well as MRSI’s marketing and sales of the relevant technology in its own products many years before Palomar filed for its invalid patent.  MRSI previously invalidated one of Palomar’s three independent claims through the Inter Partes Review process before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. 

“MRSI will continue to aggressively defend itself in the ongoing litigation in Boston, and has already filed numerous motions addressing discovery violations by Palomar in connection with that litigation,” said Brian Paul Gearing, Ph.D., an IP Litigation Partner in Crowell & Moring’s New York office and lead counsel for MRSI in both litigations.  “MRSI will also seek its attorneys’ fees from Palomar by showing that Palomar repeatedly engaged in misconduct throughout its meritless lawsuit brought against MRSI.  MRSI remains confident that it will prevail in both the ongoing litigation in Boston as well as the new lawsuit that MRSI has just filed against Palomar.”

As a leading manufacturer of high precision, assembly systems for over 35 years, MRSI looks forward to continuing to provide the microelectronics and optoelectronics market with innovative, and value-adding system solutions.          

For additional information, please contact:
Jennifer Russo
Marketing Manager, MRSI Systems
Tel: +1 (978) 667-9449, e-mail: jennifer.russo@mrsisystems.com
Time Zone: ET – Eastern Time

Brian Paul Gearing, Ph.D.
IP Litigation Partner, Crowell & Moring LLP
Tel: +1 (212) 895-4325, e-mail: bgearing@crowell.com
Time Zone: ET – Eastern Time

About MRSI Systems
MRSI Systems, part of Mycronic Group, is the leading manufacturer of fully automated, high-speed, high-precision and flexible eutectic and epoxy die bonding systems. We offer “one-stop-shop” solutions for research and development, low-to-medium volume production, and high- volume manufacturing of photonic devices such as lasers, detectors, modulators, AOCs, WDM/EML TO-Cans, Optical transceivers, LiDAR, VR/AR, sensors, and optical imaging products. With 30+ years of industry experience and our worldwide local technical support team, we provide the most effective systems and assembly solutions for all packaging levels including chip-on-wafer (CoW), chip-on-carrier (CoC), PCB, and gold-box packaging. For more information visit www.mrsisystems.com

About Mycronic
Mycronic AB is a Swedish high-tech company engaged in the development, manufacture and marketing of production equipment with high precision and flexibility requirements for the electronics industry. Mycronic headquarters are located in Täby, north of Stockholm and the Group has subsidiaries in China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States. Mycronic AB (publ) is listed on NASDAQ Stockholm. www.mycronic.com