History (1997): Iomega Accuses Nomaï to Make Zip Disks Illegally

History repeats itself?

Is Nomaï, which began by manufacturing SyQuest compatible cartridges, leading to severe tensions and even a long and costly legal battle between the 2 companies, attempting the same thing by producing Zip disks without lomega’s authorization?

The French firm had only 2 words to say: “No comment.”

Iomega got whiff of the plan through Thames Automation, a company with headquarters in Utah, like Iomega, which was preparing to sell Nomaï an automated assembly line for Zip-compatible products the French company was meant to demonstrate at CeBIT last March.

Iomega wasted no time filing an injunction at the landgericht Court in Hanover, Germany, on March 19, which prohibited Nomaï from manufacturing or offering its product in Germany for an initial period of 6 months.

Iomega then undertook a similar action in the District Court of Paris, France, for the same reason.

A legal action in USA is also anticipated.

The Zip manufacturer already filed, on April 8, a motion for a temporary restraining order preventing Thames from selling Nomaï, any assembly lines for compatible disks.

Recall that Iomega signed an agreement with Nomaï, in 1993 for exclusive worldwide distribution (except in France) of the latter company’s SyQuest-compatible cartridges.

We wrote in CDSN, March ’94: “Iomega and Nomaï have reported that sales (…) were an oustanding success story in 1993 with over 200,000 units shipped.” Since then, Iomega ceased this distribution activity and changed its CEO. The deal has finally closed in June 1997.

This article is an abstract of news published on ≠114 on July 1997 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.