R2 Semiconductor, demanding a ban on Intel processors in Europe, failed in a British court

California-based R2 Semiconductor filed a lawsuit against Intel in a British court at the end of 2023, demanding a ban on the sale of some of the company’s chips that infringe R2 Semiconductor’s corporate patents. The company has filed similar cases in other jurisdictions. Previously, her patent was declared void in the United States. Now the British court has sided with Intel, but in Italy, France and Germany, claims from R2 Semiconductor are still at different stages of consideration.

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The patent that R2 Semiconductor accuses Intel of violating describes voltage regulators designed to protect chips from degradation or failure. R2 Semiconductor claims that Intel illegally used its intellectual property by integrating the technology into most of its processors. According to Intel, R2 Semiconductor’s patents are invalid, which means the company could not violate them.

An official statement from Intel, released in February 2024, alleged that R2 Semiconductor was engaged in “serial extortion of companies that are true innovators.” In the USA, Intel managed to invalidate the R2 Semiconductor patent through the courts, after which the latter switched its attention to European courts.

A British court agreed with Intel’s lawyers that R2 Semiconductor’s patents were invalid because they “lack the necessary inventive step” compared to Jian Sun’s work. Sun is one of the authors of a paper titled “3D Power Supply for Microprocessors and High-Performance ASICs,” published in 2007 by a team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York.

However, the court noted that Intel’s products would infringe the patents if they were valid. Intel declined to comment. R2 Semiconductor also did not answer journalists’ questions.

Unlike the British court, the Dusseldorf District Court ruled back in February that Intel had violated the R2 Semiconductor patent and imposed an injunction on the sale of chips containing the technology protected by the R2 Semiconductor patent. The case is currently at the appeal stage.

Over the past few months, R2 Semiconductor has continued similar litigation in other countries. In March, the company extended the lawsuit to Intel’s Italian subsidiaries, and in April filed the same complaint in a French court.

R2 Semiconductor lawyers also prosecute companies that use Intel processors, including OEMs HPE, Dell and Fujitsu, as well as cloud provider Amazon Web Services.