Court Rules SanDisk Must Stand Trial On Fraud, Patent Misuse and Unfair Competition
Business Wire - Tuesday, October 24, 2000
FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2000--Lexar Media, Inc. (Nasdaq:LEXR), today announced that the Northern District of California has ruled that SanDisk (Nasdaq:SNDK) must stand trial on Lexar's claims of fraud, patent misuse and unfair competition.
"SanDisk claims that its patent covers all CompactFlash cards and they appear to be seeking a royalty from every manufacturer of those cards. Yet they have always promoted the CompactFlash standard as an open one. If SanDisk's '987 patent is as broad as they believe it is, then it should have been disclosed to the industry standards-setting bodies such as the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) and CompactFlash Association (CFA) at the time of the standard's development," said John Reimer, President and CEO of Lexar Media, Inc. "We believe that this anticompetitive behavior is harmful to the entire industry. We are also pleased that the Court will review SanDisk's patent misuse which includes our allegations of unlawful tying whereby SanDisk has refused to license the '987 patent unless the licensee purchases flash memory from certain SanDisk designees. We therefore look forward to not only the Court's review of the validity of SanDisk's patent, but also the manner in which it was obtained."
The judge has rescheduled the trial to November 6, 2000. The trial was originally scheduled to commence on October 23, 2000. |
