Litigation
Silvaco has been involved in litigation against such companies as Circuit Semantics, Inc. (CSI), Technology Modeling Associates, MetaSoftware and Avanti Corporation for theft of trade secrets. Silvaco won a $20 million judgment from Avanti just prior to the latter company's acquisition by Synopsys. In 2008, legal action by Silvaco against Cypress Semiconductor, Inc. led the California Court of Appeal to make a ruling clarifying when the statute of limitations for theft of trade secrets begins. The ruling stated that "statute of limitations on a cause of action for misappropriation begins to run when the plaintiff has any reason to suspect that the third party knows or reasonably should know that the information is a trade secret."
In Silvaco Data Systems v. Intel Corp., Silvaco sued Intel for misappropriation of trade secrets (deriving from the CSI case), but ultimately lost in both the trial and appellate courts.
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