News

posted on 20 June 2008 06:20

Reuters reports that a privately-held firm called Convolve, has just won a patent-infringement law suit against Seagate relating to vibration control in hard disk drives. It is also sueing Dell, Hitachi GST and Western Digital for infringing the same 'input shaping' patents.

Convolve is the exclusive licensee of MIT-patented input shaping technology. This technology, licensed in 1990, is used to cut down vibration of read/write heads as they are pushed out and pulled back across disk platter surfaces. Several companies license the technology from Convolve and it makes seeks both faster and quieter.

Seagate and HP

Seagate tried to claim that it invented its vibration reduction technology first but, on Tuesday, June 17th, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office disagreed, said it was derived from Convolve's intellectual property (IP),  and judged in favour of Convolve. Seagate is not appealing the decision.

Convolve and MIT are chasing damages from Seagate and Compaq, now HP, in a still current lawsuit concerning related patents and misappropriation of trade secrets. They sued Seagate and its then customer Compaq in 2000 at a New York Federal Court. No trial date has been set. Seagate has indemnified HP on one patent in the claim and HP is seeking similar protection regarding the second patent in the claim.

Dell, Western Digital and Hitachi GST

Convolve filed a suit yesterday, Bloomberg reports, in a Federal Court in Marshall, Texas, near Dell's headquarters, claiming Dell and its two hard disk drive (HDD) suppliers are also violating its licensed input-shaping patents. Convolve and Dell have had a dialogue regarding the IP licensing since 1998 but Dell has refused to enter into a licensing arrangement. (Er, why should it? Surely the main targets of the suit are Western Digital and Hitachi GST?)

More here.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}