Tessera expands chip patent suit to Sony, Renesas

Tessera Technologies Inc., a designer of packaging for computer chips, said it sued Sony Corp.'s electronics unit and Renesas Electronics Corp. in an effort to obtain more patent royalties.

The lawsuit accuses Sony and Renesas of infringing a patent related to a way of making the packaging that goes around silicon wafers so they can be used reliably in smaller electronics, Tessera said in a statement. The company said it filed the complaint Oct. 1 in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware.

Tessera Chief Executive Officer Hank Nothhaft has called the company's patent litigation a "strategic" effort to reach licensing agreements after negotiations fail. The San Jose, California-based company got almost all of its $299.4 million in revenue last year from royalty and licensing fees.

Sony, based in Tokyo, makes Bravia TVs, the PlayStation 3 game console, Vaio notebook computers and Blu-ray disc players. A Sony spokesperson didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. Renesas, also based in Tokyo, makes chips that control products including DVD players and vehicle air bags.

The patent, issued in 2005, is different than ones asserted against companies including mobile-phone chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. and memory-chip maker Nanya Technology Corp.

Tessera lost a case before the U.S. International Trade Commission against memory-chip companies including Nanya, Acer Inc., Elpida Memory Inc. and ProMos Technologies Inc. It won a case against Qualcomm, Motorola Inc. and four other companies over chips used in wireless devices. Motorola later took a license to the Tessera patents.

Both the memory-chip and wireless-chip cases are on appeal.