Harvard Sues Samsung in Federal Court Over Patent Infringement

Updated August 7, 2024, at 6:57 p.m.

Harvard sued tech giant Samsung over patent infringement claims on Monday, alleging the company’s chip technology violates two patents owned by the University.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Texas, the University claimed that Samsung’s methods for producing microprocessors infringe on work patented in 2009 and 2011 by Harvard chemistry professor Roy G. Gordon ’61 and four other named inventors, all former postdoctoral or graduate students in Gordon’s lab at Harvard.

The University alleges two counts of patent infringement.

Harvard’s lawyers argued in the complaint that Samsung “knowingly, actively, and intentionally” infringed on the patented memory technology by using it without authorization in its microchips, smartphones, and semiconductor facilities.

The lawsuit, filed by intellectual property attorneys from the law firm Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders, asked the court to issue an order prohibiting Samsung from further infringement and grant an unspecified sum in monetary damages. The complaint includes a request for jury trial.

A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit. A representative for Samsung did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Gordon — now an emeritus professor who formerly chaired the chemistry department — has pioneered research into the use of vapor deposition systems to make thin films. His work has generated 100 patents in his name as of 2016, including a window-coating developed in the 1970s that insulated houses and reduced energy consumption.

Gordon did not respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.

Harvard claimed in the lawsuit that the two patents — which cover Gordon’s work creating and using “cobalt nitride layers for copper” and applying chemical vapor deposition for a “metal-comprising layer” — apply to Samsung’s use of films that contain cobalt or tungsten metals in microchips.

“Such films are essential to key components of numerous products such as computers and cell phones,” the filing states.

The Monday filing is the third time Harvard has sued technology companies for allegedly infringing on University-owned patents based on Gordon’s work. In 2016, the University sued semiconductor manufacturers Micron and GlobalFoundries over similar allegations of patent infringement, later settling for undisclosed amounts with GlobalFoundries in 2017 and Micron in 2018.

The University’s lawsuit is the latest in a series of higher ed-related legal challenges for Samsung, which has been engaged in a legal battle over patent infringement with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute since 2019. The tech giant also settled with the California Institute of Technology in August 2023 after the school sued Samsung in 2021 for patent infringement.

While Harvard could choose to file the case in any district court where Samsung does business, the Eastern District of Texas court could be especially favorable for the University.

The court received more than 40 percent of all patent-related federal lawsuits from 2015 to 2017, becoming especially popular among plaintiffs like universities who do not produce the technology they own. Harvard’s suit noted Samsung has not challenged this decision from previous plaintiffs in patent litigation cases.

Samsung has not filed an answer to the suit since the Monday filing. In both the RPI and Caltech cases, the company waited months to submit their initial answer.

The company is currently facing four other lawsuits in the same court that have been filed since July 24.

Correction: August 22, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Harvard sued Samsung over copyright infringement claims. In fact, the suit alleges that Samsung infringed on two patents owned by the University.

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles or on Threads @camkettles.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.