Western Digital Acquired 100 Patent Assets From IBM

Western Digital Corp. acquired more than 100 patent assets from IBM Corp.

The parties also entered into a patent cross-license agreement.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Patents acquired by Western Digital are in distributed storage, object storage, and emerging non-volatile memory. Western Digital expects the IP to strengthen its technology position and drive value creation for the company and its customers.

The patents will augment Western Digital’s existing portfolio of more than 10,000 patents and patent applications.

“This agreement reflects our continued focus on innovation and sets the stage for even more rapid advancement and commercialization of new storage solutions,” said Mike Cordano, president and COO, Western Digital. “We are building on Western Digital and IBM’s long-standing relationship and look forward to future collaborations and business opportunities.”

“This agreement with Western Digital illustrates the value of patented IBM inventions and demonstrates our leadership in licensing access to our broad patent portfolio. We look forward to a productive relationship with Western Digital,” said William LaFontaine, GM, intellectual property for IBM.

IBM has led the annual list of U.S. patent recipients for 23 consecutive years.

Comments

We suspect that, concerning distributed storage and object storage, the patents sold by IBM come from Cleversafe, acquired in November 2015 by Big Blue for an unknown amount.

Cleversafe is a developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliances with more than 350 patents.

Especially it could help Western Digital to avoid patent litigation to sell product originated from Amplidata, Belgium firm in software-defined storage for high capacity scale-out storage acquired on March 2015.

At the same time, Cleversafe claimed Amplidata's patented Distributed Storage System infringed four patents and sought a permanent injunction.

Since 2011, there was also several other complaints for patent infringement from Cleversafe vs. Amplidata.