Now, this Supreme Court ruling is the news of the day, as far as I am concerned, but unfortunately, it seems like I'm the only one commenting on it.
....The ruling may prove to be the most significant Supreme Court patent decision in two decades, affecting as many as 90 percent of the 1.2 million patents now in force, lawyers said.
quote.bloomberg.com
The major storage-related patent cases in the pipeline include the following:
1) EMC vs HDS/Hitachi - as mentioned, this patent action could also impact HDS/Sun, HDS/HPQ and even IBM, which may be looking to sell the HDS box if Shark continues to flounder now that everybody who wants a mainframe already bought one last year. Related case is EMC vs StorageApps (now part of HPQ).
2) McDATA vs Brocade - this patent action over frame filtering could potentially benefit EMC and IBM, and could adversely affect HDS, HPQ, Sun and everybody else. EMC, IBM, and McDATA have various cross-licensing agreements that effectively allow access to McDATA and Brocade technology so if McDATA wins an injunction vs Brocade, it could potentially disrupt the product plans of Brocade OEMs who do not have the same access to McDATA technology.
What is notable about this case is that McDATA has 26 utility patents and more than 25 patents pending while Brocade only has 2 utility patents and less than 5 patents pending. Not surprisingly, Brocade was NOT able to counter-sue McData for patent infringement like HDS/Hitachi.
McData was also able to have its motion for discovery (mid-July) approved by the court.
3) SOS vs ROW (rest of the world) - blue-chip law firm on contingency. 'Nuf said. |
