Contract analysis

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This memorandum sets forth the comprehensive trial strategy for the upcoming jury trial in Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. v. Lumicore Technologies, Inc., Case No. 2:24-cv-00319-JRG, currently scheduled to commence on February 2, 2026, before the Honorable James R. Gilstrap in the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. The memorandum covers trial themes, witness sequencing, exhibit strategy, jur

II. CASE OVERVIEW AND MARKMAN RESULTS A. The Parties

1. Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. (Plaintiff) Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. ("OWS" or "Optiwave") is a Delaware corporation headquartered at 4810 Bayside Technology Parkway, Suite 300, Santa Clara, California 95054. OWS is a fabless semiconductor company specializing in the design and commercialization of silicon photonics chipsets for data-center interconnects. The company was founded in 2009 and has grown to approxima

2. Lumicore Technologies, Inc. (Defendant) Lumicore Technologies, Inc. ("Lumicore" or "LTC") is a Delaware corporation headquartered at 9200 Spectrum Boulevard, Building C, Austin, Texas 78759. Lumicore is a fast-growing competitor in the silicon-photonics transceiver market, with approximately 870 employees. The company was founded in 2017 and has experienced rapid revenue growth, reporting estimated revenue of $312

1. The '847 Patent — U.S. Patent No. 10,234,847 Title: "Multi-Channel Silicon Photonic Waveguide Multiplexer with Low Insertion Loss" Filing Date: September 14, 2016 Issue Date: March 19, 2019 Original Assignee: Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. Current Assignee: Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. Asserted Claims: 1, 3, 5, 9, 14 The '847 Patent is directed to a multi-channel silicon photonic waveguide multiplexer architecture t

2. The '193 Patent — U.S. Patent No. 10,891,193 Title: "High-Bandwidth Coherent Optical Transceiver Integrated on Silicon Substrate" Filing Date: April 7, 2017 Issue Date: January 12, 2021 Original Assignee: Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. Current Assignee: Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. Asserted Claims: 1, 3, 7, 10, 15, 18 Doctrine of Equivalents Contentions: Claims 3 and 7 The '193 Patent discloses and claims a high-ban

3. The '562 Patent — U.S. Patent No. 9,678,562 Title: "Method for Thermal Management of Photonic Integrated Circuits Using Embedded Micro-Channel Heat Sinks" Filing Date: November 22, 2014 Issue Date: June 13, 2017 Original Assignee: Solara Optics, Inc. Current Assignee: Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. Asserted Claims: 1, 4, 6, 11 The '562 Patent was originally assigned to Solara Optics, Inc. ("Solara"), a company that

4. The '015 Patent — U.S. Patent No. 11,402,015 Title: "Polarization-Diverse Grating Coupler for Silicon Photonic Transceivers" Filing Date: August 30, 2019 Issue Date: August 2, 2022 Original Assignee: Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. Current Assignee: Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. Asserted Claims: 1, 5, 8, 12, 16 Doctrine of Equivalents Contentions: Claim 12 The '015 Patent discloses and claims a polarization-diverse gr

1. LumiLink 400G-ZR+. Launched in Q3 2022, this product is a 400-gigabit coherent optical transceiver module designed for data-center interconnect ("DCI") applications at extended reach distances. LumiLink 400G-ZR+ generated $94.8 million in revenue in fiscal year 2023. This product is accused of infringing the '847 Patent (waveguide multiplexer), the '193 Patent (coherent transceiver integration), and the '562 Paten

2. LumiLink 800G-DR8. Launched in Q1 2023, this product is an 800-gigabit direct-detect transceiver module using eight parallel 100G lanes. LumiLink 800G-DR8 generated $128.4 million in revenue in fiscal year 2023 and is Lumicore's highest-revenue accused product. This product is accused of infringing all four asserted patents: the '847 Patent, the '193 Patent, the '562 Patent, and the '015 Patent.

3. LumiEdge 1600G-LR. Launched in Q4 2023 — critically, several months after Lumicore received both FairPoint notice letters and participated in the face-to-face licensing meeting — this product is a next-generation 1.6-terabit long-reach transceiver module. LumiEdge 1600G-LR generated $41.7 million in revenue in fiscal year 2023 (reflecting only partial-year sales from its Q4 launch). This product is accused of infr

5. Means-Plus-Function Rulings The Court identified two claim limitations as potentially invoking 35 U.S.C. § 112(f): Claim 9 of the '847 Patent ("means for coupling optical signals from the waveguide multiplexer to an output fiber") and Claim 15 of the '193 Patent ("means for digital signal processing of the coherent optical signal"). For each, the Court identified the corresponding structures disclosed in the speci

6. Overall Assessment The Markman ruling is favorable to OWS on balance. The Court's constructions support literal infringement on the vast majority of the asserted claims across all three accused products. The DOE theories for Claims 3 and 7 of the '193 Patent and Claim 12 of the '015 Patent remain viable as fallback positions but may be less critical than initially anticipated if Dr. Ashford can establish literal i

III. TRIAL THEMES A. Overarching Narrative A patent jury trial is ultimately a story. The jury must come away understanding three things: what OWS invented, what Lumicore took, and why it matters. Our three overarching themes are designed to communicate these concepts in plain, compelling language. Theme 1 — "Innovation vs. Imitation" Optiwave Semiconductor invested years of research and development and hundreds of m

IV. WITNESS STRATEGY A. Plaintiff's Case-in-Chief — Witness Order and Purpose The following section describes each witness OWS intends to call in its case-in-chief, the purpose and scope of each witness's testimony, key preparation considerations, and estimated time allocations. The witnesses are presented in proposed order of presentation, which is designed to build the trial narrative sequentially: innovation → not

1. Dr. Jian-Wei Huang (OWS Chief Technology Officer) — LIVE Role: Lead inventor on the '847, '193, and '015 Patents; co-inventor on continuation applications in the '847/'562 patent family. Purpose: Dr. Huang is the face of OWS's innovation story. His testimony will open the plaintiff's case-in-chief (after the technology tutorial and opening statement) and will set the stage for everything that follows. He will expl

2. Dr. Nikolai Petrov (OWS VP Engineering, Photonics Division) — LIVE Role: Oversees the commercialization of patented technology within OWS's product line; responsible for the engineering teams that design and qualify OWS's transceiver modules. Purpose: Dr. Petrov bridges the gap between R&D and commercial products. While Dr. Huang tells the innovation story, Dr. Petrov connects that story to the marketplace. He wil

3. Rebecca Tanaka (OWS General Counsel) — LIVE Role: Managed OWS's pre-suit enforcement and licensing efforts; oversaw engagement of FairPoint Licensing Group and subsequent retention of litigation counsel. Purpose: Tanaka establishes the pre-suit notice chronology — a critical foundation for the willfulness case. She will authenticate the FairPoint licensing correspondence, describe OWS's good-faith efforts to resol

4. Angela Reeves (FairPoint Licensing Group, Managing Director) — LIVE or VIDEO Role: Conducted the pre-suit licensing outreach to Lumicore on behalf of OWS. Purpose: Reeves provides the granular detail of the notice chronology. She personally drafted and sent the licensing letters, attended the April 20, 2023 meeting in Austin, and can testify to Lumicore's lack of meaningful engagement. Her testimony corroborates T

5. Kevin Ng (Benchmark Semiconductor Analysis, LLC, Lead Engineer) — LIVE Role: Performed the reverse-engineering teardowns of all three accused Lumicore products. Purpose: Kevin Ng is the witness who puts the physical evidence in front of the jury. His testimony provides the factual foundation for the infringement case — the element-by-element comparison between the accused product structures and the patent claim li

6. Melissa Chen (Former Lumicore Engineer; now at Veridian Photonics, Inc.) — LIVE or VIDEO Role: Key fact witness on Lumicore's awareness of OWS patents during the design phase of the LumiLink 400G-ZR+. Purpose: Chen's testimony is the linchpin of the pre-filing willfulness case. She will testify that Lumicore's LumiLink 400G-ZR+ design team accessed and reviewed OWS's published patent applications — specifically Pu

7. Karen Whitfield (OWS VP of Sales) — LIVE Role: OWS's senior sales executive with firsthand knowledge of customer diversion and lost sales attributable to Lumicore's accused products. Purpose: Whitfield provides the real-world commercial impact testimony that grounds the damages case. While Dr. Keating will provide the economic quantification, Whitfield gives the jury a human perspective on what it means to lose a

8. Dr. Caroline Ashford (Plaintiff's Technical Expert — Infringement and Validity) — LIVE Role: Expert witness on infringement (literal and doctrine of equivalents) and validity, retained from the Northfield Institute of Technology, where she is a tenured professor of electrical engineering and photonics. Purpose: Dr. Ashford is the centerpiece of OWS's technical case. She will present the infringement analysis on a