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

To: Sam who wrote (27805)	3/30/2005 9:54:16 PM
From: clix	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Yes, it seems that the article was written right after the initial award but before the punitive damages, and before Toshiba indicated that they will appeal. It's true that this trial was about trade secrets (and other issues) and not about patents. However, there are hints about the patents issues as well. Basically, Lexar stated that some information it provided Toshiba under their "partnership" was trade secrets at that time, but was later patented. As to whether this Lexar technology was fundamental to NAND or not: It seems that Lexar is taking the position that it developed basic technology required in the NAND chips if they are to communicate at high speeds with a controller. The specific methods mentioned (parallel writing, using a cache, pipelining, etc.) are all widely used in other hardware of all sorts -- but if Lexar has established that it "invented" their use with flash memory (which presumably has been established in their patents) then it seems that this is fundamental, and not dated, technology. As I have mentioned several times, Lexar seems to have let Sandisk off the hook with the following passage in their original complaint: Lexar has licensed its flash memory patents to companies, such as Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation, and Sandisk Corporation, who recognize the value of Lexar's patent portfolio. Strangely, they also said (in 2002, when the complaint was filed) that they expected to make $50M from royalties between 2001 and 2004. I think that's off by a factor of 10 (?). So I am curious how they are going to establish significant damages in the patent trial. But perhaps the royalties from the three companies mentioned have been low because of cross-licensing.