Mentor Graphics Corp has filed a patent infringement suit against Quickturn Design Systems Inc – the company its tried to acquire through a hostile takeover but eventually lost to white knight Cadence Design Systems Inc. The suit, filed in Delaware, alleges the infringement of two patents Mentor holds on its next- generation emulation product, the Celaro system. Mentor is seeking unspecified damages and a permanent injunction against the sale of the Quickturn Mercury system. Mentor says the legal action was a last resort but intends to prove that the Mercury product contains technology that it considers to be its own intellectual property. The patents in question cover field programmable gate arrays with integrated debugging facilities, and method and apparatus for tracing any node of emulation respectively.
