August 10, 2006 – On the heels of a favorable ruling in a Korean patent court, FormFactor Inc., Livermore, CA, has filed two more patent infringement lawsuits against Phicom Corp. concerning the same wafer probe card technology that allegedly has been incorporated into Phicom’s products.

In June The South Korean Patent Court upheld the validity of FormFactor’s Korea Patent No. 252,457, relating to MEMS-based wafer probe cards, which has been at the center of its dispute with domestic firm Phicom for more than two years. FormFactor filed a similar action filed against Phicom in US federal court in Oregon in 2005.

“With the backdrop of the favorable June Patent Court decision, these latest filings in Korea are directed to protecting innovations already recognized as valid by an appellate court in Korea,” stated Igor Khandros, FormFactor CEO. At the time of the June ruling, he had acknowledged that it likely would not have an immediate business impact, but served to show the strength of the company’s wafer-test patent portfolio.

Earlier this year the Korean Patent Court reopened the case regarding the single patent, but invalidated 10 claims of the patent. The two firms have been in litigation since early 2004, when Phicom’s challenges to three disputed patents were dismissed.