Yamaha Announces Lawsuit Decision

Yamaha Corporation (hereinafter, Yamaha) filed two lawsuits against Axell Corporation (headquarters: 14-1, Soto-Kanda 4-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; hereinafter, Axell) on the grounds of patent infringement on April 14, 2010. On August 31, 2012, the Tokyo District Court handed down its decision on one of the lawsuits and the details are:

Yamaha filed these lawsuits against Axell in the Tokyo District Court on the grounds that Axell's sound LSI^*1 and multifunctional LSI^*2 infringe on five Japanese patents^*3 owned by Yamaha for sound data reproduction and synthesizing technologies. The lawsuits request a court order prohibiting Axell from manufacturing and sales of these devices and payment of damages. The five patents were divided into two groups that are technologically related, and lawsuits were separately filed for the infringement of these two groups of patents.

The Tokyo District Court issued its decision to dismiss the requests made by Yamaha regarding the first lawsuit on August 31, because it does not infringe on Yamaha's patents.

Going forward, Yamaha will examine carefully the content of this decision and consider appealing the court decision to the Intellectual Property High Court of Japan to secure a proper understanding of its case.

As regards the second lawsuit, Yamaha will continue to argue the validity of its case.

Please note that there will be no impact on Yamaha's corporate performance as a result of this decision.

Regarding the validity of Yamaha's patents, Axell instituted proceedings with the Japan Patent Office to invalidate four of Yamaha's five patents, but, thereafter, Yamaha fought to uphold the validity of its patents before the Intellectual Property High Court. The decision of the Intellectual Property High Court was to recognize the validity of all the contested Yamaha patents to date.^*4

*Notes:

• *1. Sound LSIs are LSIs that perform the function of reproducing compressed sound data.
• *2. Multifunctional LSIs are LSIs that integrate sound functions and graphic functions.
• *3. Patents covered by the lawsuits
  Lawsuit 1: Patent numbers 2943636, 2734323, and 3918826
  (Patents related to data formats and sound reproduction methods for compressed sound data)
  Lawsuit 2: Patent numbers 3003559 and 3097534
  (Patents related to improving the efficiency of computational processing of sound data synthesis based on computational processes)
• *4. Axell is making a petition for a final appeal to the Supreme Court of Japan regarding one of the four Yamaha patents that were recognized to be valid by the Intellectual Property High Court.

For further information, please contact

Yamaha Corporation

Corporate Communications Division, Public Relations Group

• Email:
• TEL. +81-3-5488-6601
• FAX. +81-3-5488-5060