EVE has just announced that the Japanese Customs Office has rendered a decision to reject Mentor Graphics’ application to suspend the importation of its best-in-class emulation systems.

Each of the three intellectual property rights experts appointed by the Japanese Customs Office made a detailed analysis of the patent at issue and the alleged EVE ZeBu products, and the experts delivered opinions that the Japanese Customs Office should not accept the application from Mentor Graphics. Among other issues, this application alleged the infringement of Mentor Graphics’ intellectual property by the ZeBu products utilizing the Readback™ feature provided by Xilinx in its FPGAs and used in all ZeBu products since EVE began shipping emulation systems.

“This is excellent news for design teams throughout Japan, a country where EVE has provided strong support to a broad installed base of prestigious customers,” says Dr. Luc Burgun, EVE’s president and chief executive officer (CEO).

“We invite Mentor Graphics’ management to reconsider its tactics and compete with us on a level playing field, based on the merits of our respective products and the quality of our support teams. This request is shared by our customers, who have been extremely supportive during this legal battle, and the electronic design automation industry at large. Legal battles have a negative impact on any industry and the capital wasted on litigation would be better invested on innovation and growing the business.”

This legal action is just the latest in a long string of legal procedures that have plagued this market sector. Hardware assisted verification, whether through emulation or acceleration ,is a profitable and growing segment of the EDA industry. It is an unfortunate characteristics of this industry that companies at times choose using legal maneuverings as a competitive tool.