Agilent Sues Elan Microelectronics

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 23 -- Agilent Technologies Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Elan Microelectronics Corp. for patent infringement in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit alleges that Elan infringes Agilent's US patents 5,786,804 and 6,433,780, both relating to optical mouse sensor technology.

Agilent is seeking to stop Elan from selling infringing optical mouse sensors to companies manufacturing optical mice that are imported, distributed or sold in the US and is seeking damages from Elan for its alleged unauthorized use of Agilent's patented optical mouse sensor technology.

Agilent previously filed a lawsuit against PixArt Imaging Inc. alleging it infringed US patent 6,433,780. In October, the California court granted a motion by Agilent to add two patents ( 5,686,720 and 5,786,804) to the pending patent infringement lawsuit against PixArt.

In November, Agilent introduced an LED-based optical mouse sensor that the company said provides better tracking control than the its previous-generation LED-based devices. The new sensor works on a wide variety of surfaces, including wood desktops and halftone images. Agilent also introduced laser mouse technology earlier this year that it says surpasses by 20x the LED-based devices in surface tracking accuracy.

For more information, visit: www.agilent.com