SanDisk Files Patent Claims Against 25 Companies

By Tim Conneally | Published October 26, 2007, 1:02 PM

Flash memory leader SanDisk has filed patent infringement suits against no fewer than 25 companies in the US International Trade Commission, as well as in Federal Court.

Though public statements have yet to reveal which of SanDisk's over 780 U.S-issued patents (and over 400 foreign-issued patents) the companies are infringing upon, SanDisk says it is enforcing its patents to be fair to third parties who legitimately license from them.

The Milpitas, CA company has filed suit against the following companies: ACP-EP Memory, A-Data, Apacer, Behavior Computer (Emprex,) Buffalo, Chipsbank, Corsair Memory, Dane-Elec, Edge, Imation/Memorex, Interactive Media (Kanguru,) Kaser, Kingston, LG, Phison, PNY, PQI, Silicon Motion, Skymedi, Transcend, TSR (T.One,) USBest, Verbatim, Welldone, and Zotek/Zodata (Huke).

Some of the companies on this list are already involved in three cases against SanDisk, as there are also two cases open in the United States District Court in the Western district of Wisconsin. The first of the cases is for the infringement of the same five system-level patents involved in the ITC action, the second includes an additional two patents not involved.

In what is effectively a lawsuit against all its competitors, SanDisk seeks not only damages and a permanent injunction in the federal cases, but also a ban on importation of the products. A successful case for SanDisk could mean a substantial decrease in market rivalry for the memory leader.

Comments

View comments by with a score of at least

When are these companies going to start taking the diapers off and the thumbs out of their mouths. Now that they've sent all the jobs overseas and make more money now, they have nothing better to do than play in the courtyard.

WA-A-A!!!

Score: 0

|

In 2 years you're going to have 32GB, 64GB and 128GB cards, and the whole market will collapse because you'll just have one little tiny card with your whole freaking life on it.

The era of things that spin... hard drives, CD's, DVD's is coming to an end... Little cards with billions of bits are the future.

Score: 0

|

oh good. higher pricing on memory products. that'd be awesome

Score: 0

|

um ohes noes.. if they were smart about this, they could be on the band wagon of replacing disk hard drives.. but now they instead choose to fight amungst themselves.. and increase prices.. and lower sales.. and yay! prevent evolution of hard drives..

Score: 0

|

Google Chrome 4: Yes, it's fast, but is it usable?

As Betanews readers have responded to our stories about Chrome's JavaScript superiority...Does that mean we'd actually use this browser? Well...

Video: Netflix on PlayStation 3

Netflix has come to the PlayStation 3 via Blu-ray and BD-Live.

Verizon Wireless launches new Android, Chocolate, and ruggedized phones

The lower-priced Eris joins the Droid, while the Chocolate gets a touchscreen and more music playback.

Early sales figures for Windows 7 nicely high, but do we know why?

Fans of triple-digit surges in figures quoted by Betanews will love this one, as it appears Microsoft rediscovered how to pull off a software launch.

Myka announces its latest Linux-based 'net top box'

Myka's ION brings Boxee, XMBC, and much more to HDTVs.

What hath Mac wrought? A remembrance after a quarter-century

The reason there's a Macintosh today is not because of some brilliant flash of engineering genius, but because Apple had the audacity to learn from its mistakes.

Early build of Moblin 2.1 improves connectivity, but not device support

The Linux Foundation's Atom-centric OS yesterday received a major overhaul with the project release of Moblin 2.1 for netbooks and nettops.

The iPhone's China syndrome: Sales of 5,000 and climbing

There's actually a country where Apple's device is not a godsend, where sales can be measured in the dozens.

New European counterpart to FCC will ensure 'a more neutral net'

Late Thursday night, the ruling telecom administrators of the EU's member nations signed away their final authority to a new entity overseen by the EC.

Sophos study suggests Windows 7 UAC's default setting is self-defeating

Without any anti-virus installed, a Sophos test showed, User Account Control was only capable of thwarting just one malware package out of ten samples chosen.

Indiscreet tweet trips awareness of Web SSL vulnerability

A group of high-level security engineers had been making progress on thwarting a low-level threat to the Web, until somebody blurted it all out on Twitter.