Seagate Accuses Cornice of Patent Infringement

dncsky1530 writes "Seagate's recently filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware against Cornice of Longmont, Colo. Now it is seeking an order from the U.S. International Trade Commission to exclude Cornice disk drives and any systems or products using or containing Cornice disc drives from entry into the United States. Seagate asserts that Cornice is infringing on seven of its U.S. patents that relate to several areas of disk drive technology."

Comments

if you can't innovate then litigate

[Anonymous Coward]

seems to be the American way of doing buisness thesedays, at what point will we all stand around too frightened to develop anything for fear of being sued by a team of lawyers ?
simply developers will end up forgetting about the US market and concentrate on other countries like China or India, perhaps USA's patent/litigate buisness model is just the beginning of its end

cheers

A>S

Patent Ownership

[nurb432]

If they are violating Segates patents, then they SHOULD be sued..

Abuse of patent the system is wrong, but if you have received patent approval, you have the right ( obligation as far as im concerned ) to protect your patent.

If the patent system was totally abolished, then few companies would bother to innovate. Without some protection of having your work stolen ( and future income derived from it ) from you, why bother at all?

No surprise..

[Mr2cents]

Is it even possible to design a harddisk these days without ingringing on one of the major player's patents?

Is that the future that awaits programmers with those software patents?

Re: Western Digital too

[randyest]

Why should you feel dirty for thinking properly and lauding the use of patents in the way they were intended to be used? It's ok to stray away from the herd, you know, especially if the other sheep are being dumb and blindly following the blind sheep at the front of the pack.

Which happens sometimes here on /. of course. But I expect to see mostly posts like yours -- this suit is wholly warranted, Cornice is stealing, patents can and should be used to protect against this sort of thing.

I think most of us realize that inane blanket statements like "patents are bad, mmkay?" are useless and silly. In this case, patents are good. Even if some of the patents are teh 3vil "software patents" related to algorithms in the firmware or some such (I don't know, neither the linked info nor Seagate's website give any details.)

Or maybe you were just joking. If so, I apologize for my lack of a sense of humor -- it's early and I was out late :)

Re:Why exclude?

[javaaddikt]

It is bad because you're allowing the infringing company to gain market share and brand recognition by selling products with patented feature x. Then they gain credibility, remove feature x or alter it slightly for compliance, and and enjoy solid sales with no license fees.

Re: Western Digital too

[gnuman99]

Maybe someone should post *what* patents they are infringing? Are these the "my disk is round" type of patents or something else?

Anyone know what the actual patent numbers are?

[AnotherBlackHat]

Anyone know what the actual patent numbers are?

-- not a .sig

Two things.

[Raven42rac]

Western Digital is suing them too, so obviously something is up. Full disclosure requires me to say that 6 members of my family work for Seagate. The gist I got from the article is that Cornice is infringing on Seagate's patents relating to 1-inch hard disk drives as one of the seven patents alleged to have been infringed. I know how /.ers feel about software patents, but it is right to extend that attitude to the hardware sector? These aren't ones and zeroes, these are platters and heads. The materials cost actual money, and thousands of actual people depend on those materials to make their living. If it was open season on everything, we would have nothing, we would still be in mud huts using two cups and a string to communicate. If there is no incentive for profit, most companies won't bother to make something. That is capitalism, you take the good with the bad.

Re: Western Digital too

[Omnifarious]

Actually, while I suspect I would think suit was justified and proper in this case, I think the patent system as a whole is completely broken and needs a major overhaul and partial replacement.

Given that, it makes me nervous to find myself supporting any litigation involving patents.

Also, they are not thieving, they are violating patents. They aren't taking anything from anyone. They are violating a societal restriction of the natural right to copy ideas that we all have (supposedly) agreed to. That is not thievery, it is patent violation. Applying the word 'thievery' implies the erroneous premise that ideas have owners.