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

To: quidditch who wrote (12810)	7/11/2000 8:04:06 PM
From: Ausdauer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Steve, "On March 30, 2000, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that certain of our products infringe one of the claims of SanDisk's patent. The court has set a trial date for October 23, 2000 to determine whether we infringe any of the other claims of the patent and whether the patent is valid. We intend to vigorously contest SanDisk's claims and the validity of SanDisk's patent at trial, but to succeed we will have to overcome by clear and convincing evidence the legal presumption that a patent is valid. This is a difficult burden of proof and, as a result, patents are found to be valid in the significant majority of cases." also, "We believe that part of SanDisk's business strategy is to file intellectual property lawsuits against its competitors and that SanDisk will initiate additional litigation against us. SanDisk is the holder of a number of patents relating to flash memory and flash memory storage devices such as CompactFlash. Potential additional SanDisk litigation would likely involve different patents with new method or system claims. In addition, new patent applications are continually being filed and pending United States patent applications are confidential until patents are issued. Thus, it is impossible to ascertain all potential patent infringement problems. As with the current SanDisk litigation, we cannot assure you that we would prevail in any such litigation and an adverse decision could render us insolvent or severely impair our future business prospects. _______________________________________________________________________ *Lexar Media has painted itself into a corner and now must nullify SanDisk's patents or produce sufficient funds to cover the infringements. If they procede they risk possible treble damages which they may be incapable of paying. SanDisk first seeks royalty or co-licensing agreements and only resorts to legal actions when the potential licensee refuses to recognize the IP. Lexar is creating an unsavory image of SanDisk which is not representative of SanDisk's usual business practices. SanDisk = class act. **The word "insolvent" also appears in the paragraphs relating to injunctions. Ausdauer (Lexar Media should change its ticker symbol to "TOAST")