Board of Patent in Favor Convolve Against Seagate
Concerning a dispute regarding patented motion control disk technology
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on January 23, 2008 at 3:52 pmThe Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences of
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office found in favor of technology
company Convolve Inc. and against Seagate Technology Inc. in a patent
dispute brought by Convolve against Seagate regarding disk drive
technology. The Board denied Seagate’s motions challenging the
patentability of Convolve’s claims. Seagate did not appeal the Board’s
decision.
Convolve’s lead counsel in the interference,
Charles L. ("Chico") Gholz of Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier &
Neustadt, P.C., said, "We are extremely pleased with the Board’s
decision, which vindicates Convolve’s position that it made the
invention in dispute first and that Seagate derived that invention from
Convolve. Also, the Board made important law on the proper
interpretation of a highly controversial section of the patent statute,
35 U.S.C. $ 135(b)(2)." Convolve was represented by Chico Gholz and
Todd Baker of Oblon, Spivak.
Convolve and its licensor MIT
are also seeking damages in an ongoing lawsuit against Seagate and its
customer Compaq Computer Corp. in which Convolve and MIT allege
infringement of two related patents as well as numerous trade secret
misappropriations, all involving Convolve’s proprietary disk drive
technologies. The suit was initially filed in July 2000 in the U.S.
District Court for the Southern District of New York. A trial date has
not been set.
HP, which acquired Compaq in 2002, stated in
their recent 10K dated January 2, 2008, that Seagate was indemnifying
them on one patent in this nearly 8-year litigation and they are
seeking to have Seagate indemnify them with respect to the second
patent in the suit.
Convolve is the exclusive licensee of
patented motion control technology called Input Shaping, originally
developed at and licensed from MIT. This technology permits disk drives
to perform seeks significantly faster and also dramatically reduces the
seek noise. Convolve’s core vibration reduction technology is licensed
to many large companies worldwide and the U.S. government.
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