You know, the validity of the patents is almost incidental, if the one reason a person buys a zIp is for compatibility, and you KNOW that the Nomai disk MAY not be compatible with other zips. If a person is that price sensitive, then other high capacity drives are available for much less.
Zip disk sales are mostly "sneaker net" sales, or limited backup.
I think the point of dispute was the optical thingamabob, that is used to verify that the disk is a zip disk and not something else (LS120, 1.44 floppy, sony HiFD). I think they could have prevailed, eventually.
The 500,000 Nomai number is not a sell through. I think it was 200,000 sell through, and 300,000 distributor orders (thru Feb).
Times $8/floppy, is $4 million revenues. Again, a pimple on what IOM needs in revenues.
The issue is not destroying IOM drives. The issue is infringing upon intellectual property, which the optical ID plate supposedly was.
I'm happy that IOM is going up today. I think that Maxell and other non IOM licensees would go ahead and build copy disks, if there was enough volume. But with tie ratios so low, i doubt there is enough there to justify the legal costs and low margin competition.
BL |
