Besides the typical bravado blah-blah about protecting one's innovation, Steve Sanghi, president and CEO of MicroChip, exuded: "The U.S. Patent Office is currently reexamining those patents, and we fully expect the Patent Office to confirm the reach of our patents."

Chief Marketing Officer of Luminary, Jean Anne Booth, retorted with her own hollow bravado: "They chose to send a press release rather than talk to us, showing that they are acting like a big corporate bully trying to stifle innovation and competition, and scare our customers. We continue on undaunted." As the suit was just filed, a reminder that becoming daunted takes time.

MicroChip filed a lawsuit against ZiLog last August for the same three patents. Seems that ZiLog initiated the ex parte reexam. Good for them to get that counter-attack prong going early in the litigation, rather than using it as a last resort, and possibly too late, like RIM foolishly did in its NTP case. Not so good for them is that the reexam requests were thin, and at least some of the cited art off-point.

The patent claims are relatively concise, simple, and broad. The patented technology goes to using a data bus less than the available port pins.

By suing Luminary now, the clock starts ticking for damages.

MicroChip is clearly betting that at least some decent claims will live past reexam, thus achieving invincibility status.  Both cases have settlement written all over them if any of the MicroChip patents survive another round of patent office scrutiny.