News

posted on 15 April 2008 08:01

When Seagate CEO Bill Watkins said Sagate might sue flash solid state drive (SSD) manufacturers for patent infringement he was deadly serious. To prove it Seagate is sueing STEC, recently selected by EMC to supply flash drives for its Symmetrix DMX4 arrays.

Seagate's suit, filed in a San Francisco court, the one where Sun filed its third suit against NetApp, claims STEC's products, currently shipping in small quantities in the USA, violate four Seagate and Maxtor patents relating to the interface between a solid state drive and a host computer: server; PC; or laptop. The areas covered include solid-state memory storage, memory-backup systems, error correction and device self-testing systems.

STEC, originally Simple Technology Limited, is a $190 million annual revenue company, a fraction of Seagate's size. 

Bill Watkins is quoted as saying: "They stole our patents," and : "This is not about stifling innovation or threats to our business. ... We have an obligation to our company and our shareholders to protect what belongs to them."

Seagate has not said whether it tried discussing patent licensing with STEC particularly, but has said it has talked to SSD manufacturers generally about licensing.

A STEC source said Seagate had not approached STEC and the suit came out of the blue. The company will fight Seagate's claims as it thinks they are invalid.

Seagate wants STEC prevented from continued infringement; i.e. stop importing its SSDs, which would stop EMC in its DMX4 flash tier 0 tracks, undisclosed damages, trebled if STEC wilfully violated the patents, and royalties.

It is now well known that Seagate will introduce its own SSD technology before the year is out. Perhaps EMC should have waited before announcing the STEC supply deal.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}