Nova Ltd. — Legal Proceedings Report 2005

Mar 9, 2005

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Company Contact:

Investor relations Contacts:

Chai Toren, CFO and Vice President Ehud Helft / Kenny Green Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd. Gelbart Kahana Tel: 972-8-938-7505 Tel: +1-866-704-6710 E-mail: info@nova.co.il E-mail : Ehud@gk-biz.com http://www.nova.co.il Kenny@gk-biz.com

Nova Protects Its Intellectual Property (IP) In Integrated Metrology

The company files patent infringement complaint to protect its IP

Rehovot, Israel – March 9, 2005 – Nova Measuring Instruments, Ltd. (Nasdaq: NVMI) today announced that it had filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Nanometrics Inc. for infringing its US Patent No. 6,752,689 (the ‘689 patent), granted June 22, 2004 with a priority date in 1995. The patent relates to Nova’s Integrated Metrology (IM) tools and the fundamental aspects of these systems, which are installable on various semiconductor processing equipment.

"Nova is the pioneer in the field of Integrated Metrology," says Dr. Giora Dishon, CEO and President of Nova and co-founder of the company, "and the ‘689 patent is part of our innovative work and intellectual property that we have invested significant resources and many years building. Nova is the market leader in the growing segment of Integrated Metrology. We intend to protect our pioneering work in this market as well as our inventions."

“Integrated Metrology has applications which are useful for a variety of semiconductor manufacturing processes. Nova’s invention overcame several limitations that existed in the metrology market and provided solutions to problems that others were not able to solve,” says Dr. Moshe Finarov, CTO of Nova and co-founder of the company. “We have proved that our sophisticated and fully automatic optical metrology tool may be made small enough to be installed in the process equipment; and that such a precise metrology tool can even work within harsh environment conditions without sacrificing metrology performance.”

About Nova

Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd. (NASDAQ: NVMI) develops, designs and produces integrated process control systems for the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Nova provides a broad range of integrated process control solutions that link different semiconductor processes and process equipment. The Company’s website is www.nova.co.il.