News

posted on 17 April 2008 10:20

A WSJ blogger writes that one of the patents Seagate is sueing STEC  over  refers to the simple form factor of a solid state drive (SSD) replacing a hard drive.

US Patent  6,404,647, includes this text referring to an SSD with: “a form factor equivalent to that of a conventional disk drive, such that said storage device is configured for replacing a disk drive of a computing device.”

Seagate CEO Bill Watkins is fully aware of the ridiculousness of such a patent, likening it to the ability to patent the size of an ice cream scoop. Seagate bought the patent from Hewlett Packard and did so because it wanted to defend its hard drive supply business after having had to pay out $45 million in 2000 to a Scottish hard drive manufacturer, Rodime.

That company sued Seagate in 1992 over patent infringement with a patent referring to a 3.5-inch hard drive's physical size. Eight years later Seagate had to conceded defeat in court.

At the time Stephen Luczo, then Seagate's president and CEO, said, "We maintain the position that Seagate had meritorious defenses to Rodime's claim. However, given the uncertainty associated with leaving such a technically complex matter in the hands of a jury with no expertise in disc drive technology, Seagate has compromised this claim to mitigate this uncertainty." Seagate's last appeal to have the US Supreme court overrule the claim was denied.

It isn't going to get bitten in such a way again, but STEC may very well find it has no way to muzzle Seagate's legal rottweilers.

The company says that, in sueing STEC, it is defending its intellectual property. Well, yes, it is, but on any common sense and fair judgement basis that IP isn't worth a scoop of Ben and Jerrys' ice cream. In a legal and business sense though it is worth tens of millions of dollars.

It beggars belief that a patent office could be so blinkered that it would allow such a patent to be registered. Yet it has and the US courts have given Seagate a proven precedent for enforcing it.

STEC may as well roll over and open its cheque book on this one.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}