Infineon Technologies has announced that the company and its subsidiary Infineon Technologies North America filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) against Elpida Memory on February 19, 2010.

The complaint asserts that Elpida has engaged in unfair trade practices by making for importation into the US, and selling after importation, certain DRAM semiconductors and products that infringe four of Infineon's patents covering key inventions in semiconductor processing and device manufacturing.

Infineon's complaint with the ITC seeks an exclusion order that operates to bar from entry into the US infringing DRAM semiconductors and products that are imported by or on behalf of Elpida.

Kingston Technology, Transcend Information, A-Data Technology and other DRAM module houses are also named in the complaint.

In response, Transcend said yesterday it was trying to understand the whole issue, while A-Data declined to comment saying it had yet to receive an official notification of the lawsuit.

Elpida revealed in its last quarterly financial report that sales generated from the US were 25.49 billion yen (US$282.5 million) in the fiscal third quarter ended December 31, 2009, which accounted for 17% of its total revenues for that quarter. Compared to the same quarter a year ago, the sales jumped 97% from 12.96 billion yen posted for its fiscal third-quarter 2008.

Elpida swung to net profits in the fiscal third-quarter after eight consecutive quarterly losses. It noted memory demand was pushed up by the rise in PC shipments, mostly driven by first-time and replacement purchases in the US and Asia.