In the fall of 2004, Japanese camera maker Nikon Corp. announced the settlement of its nearly decade-long patent battle with bitter rivals ASML Holding NV, a Dutch company, and Carl Zeiss SMT AG of Germany. To those following the case, the news came as a surprise: The three companies had been slugging at each other endlessly in courts across three continents in an attempt to dominate the $5 billion market for optical lithography, a technology used in the manufacture of computer chips and liquid crystal displays. Harold McElhinny, a litigation partner at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco and Nikon’s lead settlement negotiator, got much of the credit for obtaining a $145 million settlement for Nikon. But both sides say that some of the credit for the agreement should go to retired magistrate judge Edward Infante.
Infante is a mediator for alternative dispute resolution provider JAMS (short for Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services) in San Francisco, and U.S. district court chief judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the Northern District of California, the presiding judge in one of the pending cases, sent the warring parties to him, hoping Infante would be able to broker peace. He did.
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