SanDisk Sues Just About Everyone It Can Think Of For Patent Infringement
from the and-using-the-loophole-too dept
Apparently SanDisk feels that it's been wronged. It believes that just about every company that makes USB flash drives, CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards, MP3/media players and/or other removable flash storage products are violating SanDisk patents. These products have been around for quite some time, but SanDisk doesn't name the specific patents in its press release, so it's not clear if these are new patents, or SanDisk's lawyers woke up one morning and suddenly decided it would be fun to sue for patent infringement. And, sue for patent infringement they did. They've targeted 25 companies with patent infringement lawsuits, and (for good measure) are using the infamous ITC loophole to ban importing any of these company's products into the US (which could happen even if the patent lawsuits get thrown out). It's certainly tough to judge the quality of the patents in play here, but the fact that there are at least 25 companies in the space doing the same thing, and all are getting sued at once, it makes you wonder how non-obvious the patents were in the first place...![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
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Inflated prices
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Mike's nonsense
WTF are you talking about ?
Not sure about this particular case, would need to read and understand the damn patents first
But let me tell you how this plays in general with *valid* patent on novel and non0obvious inventions
Once the patent app is published (usually years before the actual patent is granted and lawsuit can be initiated) every manufacturer and his brothwer adopts technology in their products *without* even thinking about licensing it first
Like I told you beforre, it;s a dog-eat-dog world by corporate design
Gotta love it dude
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Tax it
I think it's high time the nutjobs in charge of certain states of the united variety started imposing a tax/fine/levy on companies who introduce frivolous lawsuits.
The tax could be proportionate to the amount of court time wasted, and the extent of the damages sought.
Kind of like capital gains tax, except the company bringing the suit pays whether they win or not.
The only way this will stop happening is when it stops making good financial sense.
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I don't understand why
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techidiots
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Re: I don't understand why
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I would need to read the patents...
After all (unlike Vonage and other services) flash drives were not an invention that was a logical step in the development of removable storage devices. The product was unique at the time.
As far as compact flash and the other things go, it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to make some storage device small enough to fit into a camera and small electronics.
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Re: Tax it
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eh
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Lost business
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Re:
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RE: RE: RE : RE: :: RE:: ER:: Mike's nonsense by a
2, if sandisk sues, well, lets just hope nobody slaps the governemtn with the common sence stick, which would mean they would fine the heck out of sandisk for monopoly. yay
excuse my horrid spelling, im not an english major
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Re: RE: RE: RE : RE: :: RE:: ER:: Mike's nonsense
I like how the cowards always say if you disagree with a TechDirt story and side with a company you work for them or are a shill.
So far, I now work at Microsoft, Amazon, the RIAA, and EULA (maybe I would make more money if I actually did). Just because these companies do a lot of bad, occasionally they do something good that is overlooked or taken out of context.
I wish the cowards would come up with better insults and major in English.
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ITC and Free Trade
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Sandisk SOP
(and being sued) over patent infringement.
Most often Sandisk claims patent 5,602,987
is being violated and the claim is judged
invalid.
They've launched multiple party suits
before too but I don't recall any as
large as 25.
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Patent Lawsuits
On the other hand, those companies being sued will either settle or fight back with claims of a frivolous lawsuit seeking damages from Sandisk. Sandisk knows this risk and has obviously decided it's worth it.
Let the bell ring, come out fighting and let's see who wins (besides the lawyers.)
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Next logical step
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Re: Re: RE: RE: RE : RE: :: RE:: ER:: Mike's nonse
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This happens already
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Re: Next logical step
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laughable in the corporate context
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Re: Re: Next logical step
SanDisk invented flash RAM ? I think not. Nor were they the first to use it as a temp storage device. This needs a smack down.
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good?
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