ASML Beats Nikon In Patent Case Over Immersion Lithography Patent Infringement
The court in The Hague has ruled that ASML has not infringed a specific patent of Nikon with immersion lithography for the production of chips. According to the judge, the patent is invalid and there can therefore be no question of an infringement by ASML.
This case concerns a patent that Nikon applied for in 2004 and obtained on May 27, 2015. This conscious Nikon patent concerns an exposure technology that can transfer reticle patterns at different intervals in the pattern to a wafer with high precision and contrast in one go. According to the judge, this patent is not inventive in light of two other, older patents, one of which is from ASML and the other owned by Carl Zeiss. Therefore, the patent was declared null and void. ASML uses optical components from the German company for its immersion lithography. Nikon demanded compensation and a stop on the sale and delivery of the machines, but that claim was rejected.
Specifically, the Nikon patent deals with a deflection element for generating a plurality of light rays through a diffraction grating. According to Nikon, improved illumination is achieved by deflecting the light with the deflection element, generating different rays of light that are directed to a pupil plane. A pupillary plane is a plane in front of or behind a lens on which the light rays converge. This makes it possible to simultaneously transfer patterns with both fine and coarser structures.
The judge does not agree with Nikon’s claim that a patent of Carl Zeiss infringes the patent of Nikon, because the patent of Carl Zeiss also mentions a deflection element. The Carl Zeiss patent concerns an aperture stop and, according to the judge, it has not been made clear that this cannot be regarded as a deflection element. According to the judge, ASML’s patent also already provides the technology to simultaneously apply different patterns, both coarse and fine, to a wafer at high resolution. This means that the Nikon patent is seen by the court as not inventive and therefore void, which means that there can be no question of an infringement of Nikon’s intellectual property.
This does not yet bury the legal battle axe. It all started in 2001 when Nikon sued ASML in the US. This case was settled in 2004, with patents being mutually licensed. It was also agreed not to sue each other until December 31, 2014. Nikon claimed in 2017 that ASML infringed 11 patents and then also filed a case in Tokyo. In addition, Nikon has started a case in Germany against Carl Zeiss. ASML said in 2017 that Nikon has not taken any serious steps to negotiate the license agreements.
An ASML spokesperson told Eindhovens Dagblad that the ruling is in line with expectations and that the company has confidence in the course of the remaining patent cases. Nikon says it will appeal the ruling of the Hague court.