Tag Archive: Stec

In April of last year, hard drive maker Seagate filed a patent infringement lawsuit against solid-state drive (SSD) developer STEC, alleging the company was violating four Seagate patents in its SSD products. STEC is a relatively small SSD developer, and Seagate implied that the lawsuit was a test case to induce other storage developers into patent licensing partnerships—Seagate claimed it had invested over $7 billion developing key storage technologies and other storage vendors needed to respect Seagate’s intellectual property.

Last month, Seagate CEO Bill Watkins both downplayed the significance of flash-based solid state drives in the current computing market to Fortune magazine, then grumbled about SSD manufacturers infringing on Seagate patents. This month, the company looks to be following up on its threats: it has filed suit against relatively small SSD maker Stec Inc, alleging the company is violating four Seagate patents.

In an official response, Stec doesn’t appear to be willing to capitulate to Seagate on any points, noting that it has been manufacturing solid state drives since 1994—long before Seagate’s patents were issued—and that it believes it held the technology (including earlier patents) more than 10 years before Seagate’s patents were issued.