Following the dismissal by the Osaka District Court (court of first instance), the Intellectual Property High Court today also rendered a judgment that thoroughly rejected the claims made by Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (2500 Shingai, Iwata City, Shizuoka Prefecture) against IAI Corporation (577-1 Obane, Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka City) in the patent infringement lawsuit filed by Yamaha Motor.

On June 3, 2009, Yamaha Motor filed a lawsuit against IAI with the Osaka District Court, claiming that some products of industrial-robot control systems and some products of linear motor single-axis robots manufactured and sold by IAI infringed upon the patents owned by Yamaha Motor (specifically, Patent No. 3542615 (Patent 1) for the former and Patent No. 4105586 (Patent 2) for the latter). The Osaka District Court found no merit to any of the claims made by Yamaha Motor and therefore, dismissed the case on June 23, 2011.

Specifically, the Osaka District Court found that the robot control systems in question did not infringe upon Patent 1 of Yamaha Motor, while Patent 2 of Yamaha Motor was invalid with respect to the subject linear motor single-axis robots. Yamaha Motor objected to this judgment and appealed to the Intellectual Property High Court.

The Intellectual Property High Court upheld the judgment of the Osaka District Court and rejected the claims made by Yamaha Motor, thus resulting in the dismissal of the appeal. The judgment rendered by the Osaka District Court and the Intellectual Property High Court is justly appropriate and consistent with the good reasoning in the world of engineering. At IAI, the handling of intellectual properties has always been a matter of high priority. We will continue to conduct sound business by strictly complying with all the laws pertaining to intellectual properties.

September 27, 2012

IAI Corporation