SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ultratech, Inc. (Nasdaq: UTEK) a leading supplier of lithography, laser-processing and inspection systems used to manufacture semiconductor devices and high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs), announced today that it has filed a lawsuit in federal court in the Northern District of California against Chinese-based company Ensure NanoTech (Beijing), Inc. and its United States subsidiary (“Ensure”) and company President Dongjun Wang.
The complaint alleges that Dongjun Wang was President of Start Science (Beijing) Co., Ltd., a company that was formerly a sales agent in China for Ultratech/Cambridge NanoTech. The complaint further alleges that Dongjun Wang and his company Ensure now manufacture and sell atomic layer deposition (“ALD”) equipment that infringes Ultratech’s United States Patent No. 8,202,575. In the complaint, Ultratech also alleges that Ensure and Dongjung Wang misappropriated trade secrets from Ultratech’s advanced ALD systems, unfairly compete with Ultratech, and breached the terms of the sales agency agreement with Ultratech/Cambridge NanoTech. The complaint seeks an injunction and an award of enhanced damages.
ALD is an enabling technology that provides coatings and material features with significant advantages compared to other existing techniques for depositing precise nanometer-thin films. This technology is expected to be in high demand in volume manufacturing environments for integrated optics, micro-electro-mechanical systems, implantable devices in the biomedical sector, and batteries and fuel cells in the energy market.
Ultratech Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Arthur W. Zafiropoulo stated, “Ultratech/Cambridge Nanotech is the leading supplier of ALD systems to academic and industrial institutions worldwide. Ultratech places a heavy emphasis in research and development to provide the next-generation of ALD solutions. With this lawsuit, Ultratech seeks to protect its investments and customers from unauthorized use of its intellectual property.”
Safe Harbor
This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "remains," "thinks," "intends," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions and include management's current expectation of its longer term prospects for success. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates, assumptions and projections about our business and industry, and the markets and customers we serve, and they are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Such risks and uncertainties include the timing and possible delays, deferrals and cancellations of orders by customers; quarterly revenue fluctuations; industry and sector cyclicality, instability and unpredictability; market demand for consumer devices utilizing semiconductors produced by our clients; our ability to manage costs; new product introductions, market acceptance of new products and enhanced versions of our existing products; reliability and technical acceptance of our products; our lengthy sales cycles, and the timing of system installations and acceptances; lengthy and costly development cycles for laser-processing and lithography technologies and applications; competition and consolidation in the markets we serve; improvements, including in cost and technical features, of competitors' products; rapid technological change; pricing pressures and product discounts; our ability to collect receivables; customer and product concentration and lack of product revenue diversification; inventory obsolescence; general economic, financial market and political conditions and other factors outside of our control; domestic and international tax policies; cybersecurity threats in the United States and globally that could impact our industry, customers, and technologies; and other factors described in our SEC reports including our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed for the year ended December 31, 2013, and our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended September 27, 2014. Due to these and other factors, the statements, historical results and percentage relationships set forth herein are not necessarily indicative of the results of operations for any future period. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date of this release.
About Ultratech: Ultratech, Inc. (Nasdaq: UTEK) designs, builds and markets manufacturing systems for the global technology industry. Founded in 1979, Ultratech serves three core markets: front-end semiconductor, back-end semiconductor, and nanotechnology. The company is the leading supplier of lithography products for bump packaging of integrated circuits and high-brightness LEDs. Ultratech is also the market leader and pioneer of laser spike anneal technology for the production of advanced semiconductor devices. In addition, the company offers solutions leveraging its proprietary coherent gradient sensing (CGS) technology to the semiconductor wafer inspection market and provides atomic layer deposition (ALD) tools to leading research organizations, including academic and industrial institutions.
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