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OFS Files Patent Infringement Suit Against Yangtze Optical Fibre Company

Posted on: Monday, 13 June 2005, 09:00 CDT

Furukawa Electric North America and it's wholly-owned subsidiary OFS Fitel LLC (collectively "OFS"), designer, manufacturer, and supplier of leading edge fiber optic products, announced today that it has commenced federal litigation against Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Company Ltd. (YOFC) alleging that the China-based company infringes at least four (4) U.S. patents related to single-mode and multi-mode optical fiber and processes for making optical fiber.

OFS, formerly the U.S. optical fiber business of Lucent Technologies purchased by Furukawa in 2001, was an early pioneer in a broad range of optical fiber design, manufacturing processes, and systems-related products for telecommunications technologies. "The decision to proceed with this patent infringement filing was carefully considered," said Carl Johnston, General Counsel for OFS. "We want everyone to know that we will vigorously protect our intellectual property from companies that illegally use our technology. OFS invests millions of dollars each year in research and development to create new, patented inventions that bring significant value to our customers, and are determined to stay the leader by utilizing our superior functionality and performance, our high reliability, low cost structure - and by zealously guarding our intellectual property."

The proceedings instituted by OFS come at a time when the optical telecommunications industry is focusing on new fiber and system designs to enhance, among other things, Fiber to the Home (FTTH) applications. "The optical telecommunications industry is focusing on fiber and systems designs to enable more efficient and high bandwidth systems and services that will drive a new generation of optical fiber-based telecommunications," Johnston continued. "Over more than a decade OFS has assembled a portfolio of optical telecommunications and related technologies, presenting us with compelling opportunities as we help drive the convergence of various technologies and features into next generation of optical telecommunications."

In a complaint filed on June 10, 2005 in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, YOFC is accused of offering, distributing, selling and importing optical fiber that infringes several U.S. patents, and is seeking unspecified monetary damages from YOFC as well as a permanent injunction barring the importation and sale of YOFC's core suite of optical fiber based products.

The OFS intellectual property portfolio today includes several hundred issued U.S. patents, many assigned from the Lucent patent portfolio as part of the 2001 purchase, and more that are the result of OFS research and development efforts since 2001.

About OFS

OFS is a designer, manufacturer, and supplier of leading edge optical fiber, optical fiber cable, optical connectivity and specialty photonics products for a wide variety of applications and industries. OFS, formerly the Optical Fiber Solutions division of Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LU), has a proven track record of being first in the industry with application specific fibers, optical connectors, ribbon cables, erbium doped fibers, Raman fiber lasers and more. OFS is committed to providing customers increased value by offering products that deliver lowest cost per bit network solutions, protecting investments through future flexible solutions.

OFS distributes its optical fiber, optical fiber cable, optical connectivity and specialty photonics products directly to end users, as well as through valued distributors, external cable customers and equipment vendors.

OFS is owned by Furukawa Electric, a multi-billion dollar global leader in optical communications. Headquartered in Norcross, GA, OFS operates facilities in Avon, Connecticut; Carrollton, Georgia; Somerset, New Jersey; and Sturbridge, Massachusetts, as well as facilities in Denmark, Germany and Russia. For more information, please visit www.ofsoptics.com.

Source: Business Wire

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