Vishay Intertechnology (all named in an
amended complaint filed in the original Digi-Key suit).
The single patent asserted throughout (6,861,270), generally related to manufacturing
a semiconductor with gallium nitride wherein a second layer of that
material, among other things, is a "light emitting
layer", issued to Nitride Semiconductors in March 2005. It has
an estimated priority date in June 2000. The plaintiff pleads that
it was founded in 2000 "out of the Nitride Semiconductor
Laboratory at Tokushima University in Japan", that it
developed "the world's first UV LED in 2000", and
that it continues to make and sell "epitaxial wafers, UV LED
chips, UV LED lamps, and UV LED appliances". Currently