ITC opens patent probe of AI-server power systems, naming Foxconn, Quanta and Flex

The US International Trade Commission has opened an investigation into whether power systems used in artificial intelligence servers infringe a patent held by Vicor Corporation, naming more than a dozen of the industry's server and component makers, according to a Federal Register notice published October 14.

The complaint

Vicor, of Andover, Massachusetts, filed the complaint on September 9, 2026, under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, and supplemented it on September 10. It alleges infringement of certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 10,903,734 through the importation, sale for importation, and sale after importation of "certain vertical power delivery systems, components thereof, and computing systems containing the same." It asks the Commission to issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders.

The Commission voted to institute the investigation on October 9. It defined the accused products as "vertical power delivery systems and components thereof, used in data center server, artificial intelligence and cloud computing systems, to power artificial intelligence ('AI') accelerators, tensor processing units ('TPU'), graphical processing units ('GPU') and central processing units ('CPU'), and computing systems containing the same."

The respondents

The notice names these respondents, with their US and overseas affiliates:

• Delta Electronics, Inc. (Taiwan), Delta Electronics (Americas) Ltd. and DET Logistics (USA) Corporation
• Infineon Technologies AG (Germany)
• Luxshare Precision Industry Co., Ltd. and Dongguan Luxshare Technology Co., Ltd. (China)
• Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. (Washington state), Chengdu Monolithic Power Systems Co., Ltd. and MPS International (Shanghai) Ltd.
• Flex Ltd. (Texas) and Celestica Inc. (Canada)
• Quanta Computer Inc., Quanta Cloud Technology Inc. and two US Quanta units
• Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. (doing business as Foxconn), Foxconn Industrial Internet Co. Ltd. and FII USA Inc.
• Ingrasys Technology Inc. and Ingrasys Technology USA Inc.

That is nine corporate groups and 20 named entities (computed from the notice).

What the notice does and does not decide

Instituting an investigation does not mean the Commission has found a violation. The notice says an investigation is instituted "to determine whether there is a violation" of section 337 and whether a US industry exists as the statute requires. The Commission's Office of Unfair Import Investigations will not take part as a party, and the Chief Administrative Law Judge will designate the presiding judge. The patent claims at issue are 1-8, 11-14, 18-26, 40-56, 65-71, 80, 81, 83, 84, 90-93 and 95 of the '734 patent.