The dispute between Infineon Technologies and Innoscience over gallium nitride patents escalated from a single US district court filing into a multi-jurisdictional legal battle – and Infineon has now secured decisive rulings in its favour on both sides of the Atlantic and before the US trade regulator.
Gallium nitride (GaN) is a wide-bandgap semiconductor increasingly critical to modern power electronics. Its ability to switch faster, operate at higher voltages, and generate less heat than traditional silicon makes it a key enabling technology for electric vehicles, AI data centres, renewable energy systems, consumer electronics chargers, and industrial automation. Market analysts at Yole projected a compound annual growth rate of 49% in GaN power revenue, potentially reaching around $2 billion by 2028 – making control of the technology’s intellectual property enormously valuable.
Infineon, headquartered in Munich, has been investing in GaN for nearly two decades and holds one of the industry’s largest patent portfolios in the field – approximately 450 GaN patent families as of 2025, boosted significantly by its acquisition of GaN Systems Inc. in October 2023. Innoscience, founded in 2015 and based in Zhuhai, China, has emerged as an aggressive GaN competitor, with over 800 patent applications filed globally and a stated ambition to serve customers across data centres, smartphones, and power delivery applications.
March 2024: the opening shot
On 13th March 2024, Infineon Technologies initiated legal action against Innoscience, filing a lawsuit in the Central District of California’s district court. The suit sought a permanent injunction against Innoscience for alleged infringement of an Infineon-owned United States patent covering core aspects of GaN power semiconductors underpinning the reliability and performance of Infineon’s GaN devices.
Infineon contended that Innoscience had infringed the patent by manufacturing, using, selling, and importing into the United States a range of products including GaN transistors, with applications across automotive, data centres, solar energy, motor drives, consumer electronics, and other industrial and commercial fields.
Adam White, President of Infineon’s Power & Sensor Systems Division, stated that the company had nearly two decades of GaN experience and would vigorously protect its intellectual property in the interests of all customers and end users. It was not the first time Innoscience had faced such action: back in May 2023, Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) had also sued Innoscience in federal court and at the ITC for patent infringement, seeking damages and an import ban on a suite of GaN products.
March 2024: Innoscience pushes back
Just one week later, Innoscience issued a robust rebuttal. Innoscience firmly denounced the accusations, denying Infineon’s allegations of patent infringement as well as the validity of the Infineon patent itself, and stated it would vigorously defend itself.
Innoscience went further, challenging the quality of the patent at issue. The company alleged that the asserted patent had significant defects, and that even a cursory review of Infineon’s portfolio would reveal that the alleged invention was already disclosed in Infineon’s own earlier patents – raising concerns of potential fraud on the United States Patent and Trademark Office for failing to make proper disclosures during the patent’s prosecution.
Innoscience also sought to minimise the commercial impact of the suit, arguing that the lawsuit concerned only a small fraction of its packaged high-voltage (650–700V) GaN transistors and would not affect the vast majority of its other products, including unpackaged transistors and wafers, low-voltage transistors, and certain packaged transistors. The company emphasised its own innovation credentials, pointing to its 500-plus strong global R&D team and its goal of remaining a trusted partner to its customers.
June-July 2024: the battlefront widens
The dispute broadened considerably over the summer of 2024. On 4th June 2024, Infineon filed a corresponding lawsuit at the District Court Munich, Germany, with additional lawsuits also filed against distributors of Innoscience in Germany. Infineon successfully filed for a preliminary injunction, which the Munich court issued on 12th June 2024, obligating Innoscience to remove all infringing products from its booth at the international power electronics trade show PCIM Europe.
Then, on 23rd July 2024, Infineon expanded its US lawsuit, adding claims against Innoscience (Zhuhai) Technology Company, Ltd. and Innoscience America, Inc., based on the infringement of three additional GaN patents. Simultaneously, Infineon filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (USITC) covering all four patents at issue in the US district court proceedings.
August 2025: Munich rules for Infineon
The first full merits judgment arrived in Germany. The District Court Munich ruled in favour of Infineon in a first-instance patent infringement case, finding that Innoscience had infringed an Infineon patent through GaN products it was offering in Germany. As a result, Innoscience was prohibited from manufacturing, selling, or marketing the infringing products in Germany, and was required to pay damages to Infineon.
Johannes Schoiswohl, Senior Vice President and Head of Infineon’s GaN Systems Business Line, said the ruling was a testament to the strength of Infineon’s intellectual property and confirmed its commitment to vigorously defend its IP against infringement.
December 2025: the ITC issues a preliminary finding
The next major development came from Washington. In December 2025, the US International Trade Commission issued a preliminary ruling in favour of Infineon, finding that Innoscience had violated one Infineon patent relating to GaN technology and confirming the legal validity of both patents asserted in the case. A final ruling was expected on 2nd April 2026, with the potential to block US imports of Innoscience devices found to infringe Infineon’s intellectual property.
The ITC move followed other positive outcomes for Infineon in Germany, where the German patent office had recently upheld one of Infineon’s GaN patents in amended form, and where Infineon was continuing to pursue infringement claims before the Munich District Court.
May 2026: the ITC issues its final order
The most recent and consequential development came in May 2026. According to Infineon’s press release, the US International Trade Commission issued its final ruling, ordering import and sales bans against Innoscience’s infringing GaN products in the United States – a landmark outcome that marks the culmination of more than two years of legal proceedings in Infineon’s favour.
Where things stand
Across three jurisdictions, Infineon has now secured a consistent pattern of legal victories. In Germany, a preliminary injunction forced Innoscience off the floor at PCIM Europe in 2024, and the Munich District Court subsequently ruled on the merits against Innoscience in a first-instance judgment. In the US, both an ITC preliminary determination and the commission’s final order have gone Infineon’s way, with the final ruling ordering the most commercially significant remedy of all: a ban on importing and selling the infringing products in the United States.
For Innoscience, the rulings represent a serious commercial and reputational challenge. The company has maintained throughout that its own GaN technology is independently developed, that it has filed more than 800 patents globally, and that the patents Infineon is asserting are defective. Whether it pursues appeals or seeks workaround product designs will be closely watched by the industry.
