Creative Charges Aureal With Patent Infringement

Aureal Semiconductor Inc. announced that it has been served with a suit for patent infringement filed by Creative Technology Ltd., a Singapore corporation and its subsidiary, E-MU Systems, Inc., a California corporation, in federal district court in the Northern District of California. The suit alleges that Aureal's Vortex 8820 AC'97 Digital Audio Processor infringes United States Patent No. 5,342,990 entitled "Digital Sampling Instrument Employing Cache-Memory" which describes a specific implementation for an electronic musical instrument designed by E-MU Systems, Inc.

Aureal says it has reviewed the allegations in the complaint and believes that the action is without merit. The company further states that it intends to vigorously pursue defense of this action. The suit was filed just days after Aureal announced design wins for its AU8820 chip. Aureal is currently reviewing its alternative courses of action relative to the Creative complaint and expects to respond very aggressively.

"We are disappointed that such a suit could even be filed in the U.S. legal system today," said Kip Kokinakis, President and CEO of Aureal. "We believe this suit is not only without merit, but has been filed with the primary intent of slowing down Aureal's movement to bring important improvements in audio technology to the PC marketplace. I guess it reaffirms our belief that we have arrived as an important force in the market when Creative sues us."

Aureal builds audio semiconductor and software solutions for personal computers and consumer electronics devices.