STEC released an announcement stating it has received patent infringement lawsuits from Seagate Technology (News - Alert) and Maxtor Corporation. Seagate alleged that STEC has breached its patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,404,647 issued in 2002; 6,849,480 issued in 2005; 6,336,174 issued in 2002; and 7,042,664 issued in 2006.

 

STEC (formerly SimpleTech, Inc.) designs, develops, manufactures, and markets custom memory solutions based on Flash memory and Dynamic Random Access Memory (“DRAM”) technologies.

 

Seagate has filed a far reaching patent lawsuit against STEC over the latter’s flash memory solid state devices (SSDs). Seagate insisted that that several STEC products, including SSDs and some DRAM (dynamic RAM) devices, infringe as many as four of its patents. It has filed this suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

 

STEC maintains it has been manufacturing and shipping SSDs from well before Seagate ever filed for its patents, and so, has not violated any patents as claimed by Seagate. STEC also termed this lawsuit by Seagate as improper and without merit. Given the effect SSDs are having on the HDD market, STEC believes that Seagate’s action is a desperate move to disrupt how aggressively customers are embracing STEC’s Zeus-IOPS technology and changing the balance of power in enterprise storage.

 

STEC also added that Seagate’s actions only bolster the fact that they are the global leaders in SSDs and Seagate is attempting to slow down part of the growth that STEC is gaining through its SSD offering, particularly in the enterprise segment. STEC will aggressively pursue its defense to this infringement action.

 

The lawsuit could go a long way in changing the game between HDD and SSD makers. At a time when demand for storage is exploding, as people give up CDs and DVDs and start storing music, movies, and other media on computers, SSDs have gained ground against HDDs because they use less power and are more reliable, though HDDs remain far less expensive.

 

According to Jim Handy, analyst at Objective Analysis, the royalties, as claimed by Seagate, would become like a tax on SSDs and potentially other flash memory products, increasing prices to end users.

 

“Although we are not in a position to comment on the validity of Seagate’s claim, we have been watching the technology business long enough to understand the way the patent game is often played,” said Handy.

 

In addition in fighting the lawsuit, STEC will also closely examine the patents asserted by Seagate, believing it held such technology, including prior patents, dating more than a decade prior to any of Seagate’s patents. STEC will stress that it, too, owns patents related to SSD, which have been developed through the decades of experience STEC has with developing, manufacturing, and shipping SSDs. For example, STEC was one of the originators of stacking technology with patents dating back to the mid-1990s, while Seagate’s patent on this matter was issued in 2005.

 

“Throughout our 18-year history, STEC has been diligent in its pursuit of industry-changing technology, while entirely respectful of the intellectual property that has been developed by others. The allegation put forth by Seagate in recently published articles that STEC ‘...ha(s) stolen (its) patents,’ is simply not accurate nor in line with STEC’s long history of success and fair play in these markets,” said Manouch Moshayedi, chairman and CEO of STEC.

 

“In fact, STEC believes these allegations are in response to the competitive threat that we as a leading developer of innovative SSD technologies pose to the HDD industry. We view this action as Seagate’s attempt to slow down the growth that STEC’s SSD business is experiencing, particularly in the enterprise segment. We have a high degree of confidence in STEC’s intellectual property portfolio.”