In the past decade, the U.S. International Trade Commission has undertaken 50 Section 337 investigations into alleged patent infringements in the semiconductor industry. In 1997, four such investigations were made; this year, nine were launched in the first half alone.

The increase may be a reaction to the decision in 2006 in eBay Inc v. MercExchange, 126 S. Ct. 1837. The Supreme Court's unanimous landmark decision put an end to the "general rule" that a permanent injunction should follow a finding of patent infringement by a district court. It is now left to the trial court's discretion to decide whether an injunction should be issued. In contrast, in the ITC, the primary remedy is still the almighty exclusion order.

Over the last decade, the main players in these investigations have been Toshiba Corp. (six investigations), Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (five), and Fujitsu Ltd., Gateway Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. (each with three).

In 2006, the investigations involved Biax Corp. (against Philips and 2Wire Inc.), Fluke Corp. (against Altadox Inc., et al.), Lexar Media Inc. (against Toshiba), Linear Technology Corp. (against Advanced Analogic Technologies Inc.), Microsoft Corp. (against Belkin Corp.) and Qualcomm (against Nokia).

The 2007 investigations involve Tessera Inc. (against ATI Technologies, Freescale Inc., Motorola Inc., Qualcomm, Spansion and STMicroelectronics), Toshiba (against Hynix), Samsung (against Renesas), Toshiba (against Daewoo Electronics America, et al.), Topower Computer Industrial Co. (against Xion/Axpertec Inc., et al.), Callpod Inc. (against GN Netcom), St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants Inc. (against Eastman Kodak), Global Locate Inc. (against SiRF Technology, et al.) and SiRF Technology Inc. (against Global Locate).

Since 2000, the industry has seen a consistent annual output of some 7,000 U.S. patents. Around 9,000 U.S. patent applications are published yearly.

The top seven companies receiving such patents are Micron Technology, IBM Corp., Toshiba, NEC, Samsung, Mitsubishi and Hitachi.

Until recently, Micron Technology has been on top, with some 1,200 patents assigned to it annually. IBM is second with around 800 patents a year, with a notable increase in patents in 2002. Patents issued to Mitsubishi have noticeably tapered off rather dramatically since 2003: 616 in 2003 to 125 in 2006.

What's being patented
The top semiconductor areas for patents since 2000 have been: (1) active solid-state devices, (2) semiconductor device manufacturing: process, (3) static information storage and retrieval, (4) coherent light generators, (5) electricity: measuring and testing, (6) miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits and systems, and (7) electricity: electrical systems and devices.