Covington Secures Patent Infringement Victory for Knowles Corporation

Covington Secures Patent Infringement Victory for Knowles Corporation

September 3, 2014

WASHINGTON, DC, September 3, 2014 — Covington & Burling has secured an important patent infringement victory before the U.S. International Trade Commission on behalf of Knowles Corporation. On August 29, Administrative Law Judge Judge E. James Gildea ruled that GoerTek, Inc. and GoerTek Electronics, Inc. violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act as a result of infringement of three patents asserted by Knowles Electronics, a subsidiary of Knowles Corporation.

Knowles, a technology pioneer in the field of MEMs microphones, filed a complaint with the ITC in June 2013, alleging that GoerTek infringed patents covering the structure and method of manufacturing MEMs microphones, tiny components used in nearly all market-leading mobile devices. Knowles has sought exclusion from the United States of not only GoerTek MEMs microphones, but also downstream products manufactured by GoerTek that contain the infringing microphones, such as Bluetooth headsets.

Following a seven-day evidentiary hearing, Judge Gildea issued an extensive initial determination holding that all three of Knowles’ asserted patents were valid and infringed, and that Knowles had satisfied the ITC’s “domestic industry” test. The ITC is expected to decide in early November whether to review any portion of Judge Gildea’s decision.

The Covington team representing Knowles included Sturgis Sobin, Brian Bieluch, Robert Haslam, Alexander Chinoy, Jeffrey Lerner, Michael Kennedy, Jay Alexander, Paul Wilson, David Garr and Dan Valencia.

Covington’s win on behalf of Knowles comes just eight weeks after Covington secured another major victory at the ITC on behalf of Samsung. In that matter, Administrative Law Judge David P. Shaw determined that Samsung’s accused products did not infringe any of the asserted claims brought by Black Hills Media LLC, that most of the asserted claims were invalid, and that Black Hills had not met its burden of proving that a domestic industry exists for any of its asserted patents.