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| (Source: TSMC) |
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has scored mixed results at the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board in its efforts to invalidate patents held by Marlin Semiconductor, with the board instituting review in only two of eight inter partes review petitions filed by TSMC.
Of the eight IPR petitions for which institution decisions have issued, the PTAB agreed to institute review in two cases while declining to institute review in the remaining six.
In decisions issued on Jan. 9, 2026, the board denied institution of IPRs challenging Marlin Semiconductor's U.S. Patent No. 9,117,909, titled "Non-Planar Transistor," and U.S. Patent No. 9,786,510, titled "Fin-Shaped Structure and Manufacturing Method Thereof." TSMC filed the two petitions between August and September 2025.
The denial of institution leaves the challenged patents intact at the PTAB, potentially strengthening Marlin Semiconductor's position should the patents later be asserted in district court. In such circumstances, defendants typically face greater difficulty advancing invalidity defenses and may instead be forced to focus on noninfringement arguments. Neither of the two patents has yet been asserted in litigation.
By contrast, the PTAB instituted review in December 2025 of an IPR filed by TSMC challenging Marlin Semiconductor's U.S. Patent No. 8,993,384, titled "Semiconductor Device and Fabrication Method Thereof," which likewise has not yet been asserted in court.
Taken together, the PTAB's institution decisions underscore the difficulty TSMC has faced in using inter partes review as a defensive tool against Marlin Semiconductor's expanding U.S. patent enforcement campaign.
TSMC has also sought IPR of patents that Marlin Semiconductor has already asserted in infringement litigation, but with similarly limited success. In February 2025, Marlin Semiconductor filed two patent infringement lawsuits against TSMC and several technology companies -- including Apple Inc., Broadcom Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., Qualcomm Inc., Motorola and OnePlus -- in the U.S. District Courts for the Western and Eastern Districts of Texas. The company also initiated two parallel investigations at the U.S. International Trade Commission. All four proceedings rely on the same five Marlin Semiconductor patents.
Of those five asserted patents, the PTAB has instituted review of only one: U.S. Patent No. 7,745,847, titled "Metal Oxide Semiconductor Transistor," with institution granted in October 2025. The board declined to institute IPRs in 2025 for the remaining asserted patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 9,953,880 ("Semiconductor Device and Method for Fabricating the Same"), 9,184,292 ("Semiconductor Structure With Different Fins of FinFETs"), 9,093,473 ("Method for Fabricating Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Transistor"), and 9,147,747 ("Semiconductor Structure With Hard Mask Disposed on the Gate Structure").
Marlin Semiconductor has continued to expand its enforcement campaign. In October 2025, the company filed an additional patent infringement lawsuit against Qualcomm in the Western District of Texas, asserting U.S. Patent Nos. 7,705,666 ("Filler Circuit Cell"), 8,368,442 ("Charge Pump"), 8,461,890 ("Phase and/or Frequency Detector, Phase-Locked Loop and Operation Method for the Phase-Locked Loop"), and 10,102,475 ("Control Circuit for Generating Linear Term of Signals").
By PatenTrip
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