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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ausdauer who wrote (8094)	11/12/1999 10:56:00 PM
From: Ron C	Respond to of 60323

Interesting Info: compliments of www.steves-digicams.com ?The last sentence in paragraph 2 is very funny. "IBM To Market 64, 96 and 128MB CompactFlash Cards IBM and Apricorn are announcing a new line of IBM 64, 96 and 128MB CompactFlash cards to increase the value of accessories and peripherals by expanding storage memory. The small, portable size of the card eases data transport and allows personal and business image management, backup and archiving." "Pricing is as follows: $179 for 64MB, $279 for 96MB and $339 for 128MB. IBM CompactFlash cards are also available in 8, 16, 24, 32, 40 and 48MB. All IBM CompactFlash products are supported by years of experience and expertise in memory products." "Check out the latest IBM flash offerings (including the IBM USB CompactFlash reader and IBM PC card adapter) during Fall Comdex at the Marriott Suites Hotel (located near the Las Vegas Convention Center) 325 Convention Center Drive, IBM suites #213 and #215, second floor. Or visit our Web site at www.apricorn.com." Ron

To: Ausdauer who wrote (8094)	11/13/1999 10:02:00 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Respond to of 60323

Aus and thread, the Lexar strategy appears to be that the best defense is a good offense, and this company sure looks offensive to me. It is an unfortunate characteristic of our culture that some believe they can bring nasty lawsuits and succeed on nothing other than the time and cost they know the other side will have to sacrifice from limited monetary and psychological resources. The courts all too frequently fail to impose sanctions for frivolous suits, even though such sanctions are provided for by law. (Sanctions usually are imposed at the discretion of the court and are not mandatory.) If sanctions were imposed more frequently, there would be much less money spent on wasteful litigation and some trial lawyers would experience a sudden loss of demand for their services and loss of the accompanying income they get, win or lose. The SanDisk strategy here seems to be well organized and implemented. The main thing is to hang in there. My only suggestion to improve the strategy would be for SNDK to be a little more open in explaining to the general public and to potential customers what the patent infringement suit is all about. If an OEM customer senses that its supply of flash memories could be cut off suddenly due to an injunction against the supplier for patent infringement, the customer would be more likely to purchase more CF from SanDisk. During the 1980's one of the big patent infringement suits was Polaroid v Kodak, where the court found that Kodak had infringed something like a dozen Polaroid instant camera and film patents. Kodak paid heavily, not just in damages, but in loss of its entire (and substantial) instant photography investment. For some unknown reason, the court did not find that Kodak intentionally infringed the patents, and therefore Kodak was not liable for treble damages. Polaroid, whose management appeared to be more interested in entrenching itself than enriching shareholders, did not appeal. With Lexar, the case is somewhat different in that Lexar knew or should have known it was infringing SanDisk patents. How could it have known? The head of Lexar worked for SanDisk. A normal practice where two companies produce similar products, and where both claim proprietary technology, is for one company to obtain a license and pay royalties and then file a claim that the other company's patents are invalid. In that way, the company with the license does not endanger itself if the suit fails. It just continues producing and paying royalties, and in a market like this, making a decent profit. Or it negotiates a settlement. Lexar seems to have no interest in this common sense approach.