To All: Story out on the Lexar/Sandisk recent dismissal.
techweb.com
Lexar's Bid To Dismiss SanDisk: Thumbs Down
(08/12/98; 9:39 a.m. ET)
Electronic Buyers' News
Setting the stage for a possible court trial, a federal judge for the Northern District of California in San Francisco has denied a motion by Lexar Media to dismiss a patent-infringement suit filed by SanDisk, Lexar's principal rival in the flash-memory card market.
Fremont, Calif.-based Lexar, which was served with the suit last March, had sought to have the case dismissed, claiming SanDisk had not followed proper legal procedure by failing to adequately complete a prefiling investigation. In denying the motion, the court found SanDisk had, in fact, performed a full investigation and that it could proceed with its infringement action.
SanDisk, in Sunnyvale, Calif., the developer and market-leading supplier of the CompactFlash memory storage card, has charged that Lexar violated patented innovations in an attempt to unfairly appropriate some of SanDisk's business. Specifically, SanDisk charged Lexar with infringing on U.S. patent 5,602,987, which pertains to the emulation of a magnetic disk drive in removable flash cards. The two companies had been negotiating a cross-licensing agreement, but the talks broke down late last year, according to SanDisk.
Lexar, which is a CompactFlash licensee and manufactures the cards exclusively for the digital-camera market, has denied SanDisk's infringement claim and said it will contest the validity of the patent in court.
Related Stories:
SanDisk Files Patent Suit Against Lexar
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