Silicon Inc. Wins Order Barring Use of Its Designs for Circuits

Silicon Systems Inc. said Monday that it has obtained a temporary court order barring a former employee and a competitor from possessing or using any of the Tustin company’s schematics or designs for integrated computer circuits.

The preliminary injunction against Dennis Cocco, his Laguna Hills company and Silicon Systems’ competitor VTC Inc., of Minneapolis, remains in effect until an as-yet unscheduled trial date on a permanent injunction.

Silicon’s lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court also seeks $1 million in damages for lost sales and lowered profits.

Cocco was a design engineer for Silicon Systems and was associated with the design of one of the two computer chips at issue in the lawsuit, the company said. He was laid off in 1982 and later formed Micronix Integrated Systems Inc.

“It came to our attention earlier this year that Cocco had removed some information and used it on the (VTC) development contract Micronix got for one of our chips,” said Martin Jurick, a Silicon Systems senior vice president.

Thomas A. Pistone, Silicon Systems’ Newport Beach attorney, said the company learned that a number of competitors had the design to the circuit that Cocco worked on.

Cocco, however, denied that he took or used any Silicon systems trade secrets or other proprietary information.