History (1997): Nomaï, Reconciled (Temporarily) With SyQuest, Now Going After Iomega

SyQuest Technology and Nomaï reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit filed by the former against the latter, in January 1997 in Federal District Court in San Francisco, CA, for patent, copyright, and trademark infringement.

According to SyQuest, Nomaï will be granted a royalty-bearing license to produce 3.5- and 5.25-inch replacement cartridges for its removable disk drives. As part of the settlement agreement, the 2 companies will enter into a cross-licensing agreement and Nomaï will begin to sell SyQuest products, particularly the SyJet unit, on a private label basis.

Meanwhile, the French manufacturer and its US subsidiary Nomus have filed a complaint for declaratory relief against Iomega in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit follows on the heels of Iomega’s legal proceedings against Nomaï, filed earlier this year in France and Germany, relating to the introduction by the French firm of Zip compatible disks.

According to Iomega, Nomaï is seeking a declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of certain US patents issued to Iomega, non infringement of trade dress, trademark and copyright, and non-unfair competition and non-misappropriatio n of trade secrets.

Additionally, Nomus claims in the suit to have offered the Nomaï XHD disks for sale in USA.

“We continue to be committed to vigourously enforcing our IP rights,” said Kim Edwards, Iomega’s president and CEO. “Nothing about the California suit filed by Nomaï’ changes that commitment.“

Responding to Iomega’s attack, which challenges SyQuest’s use of the word SyJet, the latter firm has announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office has approved the company’s application for the federal registration of the SYJET trademark.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 118 on November 1997 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.