Atotech wins Chinese Patent Infringement Suit

Berlin, Germany-based specialty plating chemicals and equipment firm Atotech has won by default a patent infringement case filed by a Chinese competitor related to its Stannatech process.

The former subsidiary of the French Total group said the unnamed company withdrew the case it had filed in the People’s Republic despite having lost a similar case in Taiwan in 2013. Subsequently, both the Taiwan Intellectual Property Court and the Chinese patent authority declared the competitor’s patent appeal invalid and unenforceable.

Stannatech technology is an immersion tin process used as surface finish in printed circuit board and IC-substrate applications and used extensively in the automotive, communications, consumers and industrial electronics sectors.