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

Re:if you can't innovate then litigate

[LostCluster]

If your competitor didn't innovate but instead stole your innovation while you still have patent protection, you have to litigate. Otherwise, your competitor makes profits that rightfully belong to you.

Western Digital too

[Thiago Ize]

Sounds like Cornice really is thieving -- Western Digital has also filed patent infringement charges against them. This is one case where I'm actually FOR filing suit.

I feel dirty saying that here...

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: 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?

..and I'll bet these patents...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are something like:

Patent One:

1) Method of storage digital data in a round magnetic medium

2) Method of spinning magnetic medium

3) Method of writing to round spinning magnetic medium

4) Method of reading from round spinning magnetic medium

5) Method of using round magnetic medium, reading and writing so that it can be put in a small box with electrical connectors

6) Method of taking small box containing magnetic medium that can be read and written, using electrical connectors to attach to Electronic Data Processing Machine

7) Method of taking small box containing magnetic medium that can be read and written, using electrical connects and drilling 4 holes in it so you can use a screwdrive to attach to said EDP machine.

8) Amen.

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?

Re:Patent Ownership

[WindBourne]

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?

Personally, I do not believe that. Companies would still inovate. They have to otherwise they would die. What would probably not happen is that inovations that require a lot of fundemental research (read expense) would not happen. Nor would companies be in a hurry to share information.

Patents were developed to allow an individual time to develop an idea. Now adays, these have been extended to the point that they are the business. I believe that we should go back to what the framers wanted; A means to allow an individual to develop.

Re:Patent Ownership

[rollingcalf]

" 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."

Obtaining a patent for something that was invented before or is obvious to those skilled in the field, and choosing to sue for infringement of that patent, is itself an abuse of the patent system (regardless of the fact that the system allows such abuse by granting low-quality patents).

They should be sued only if they are violating the patents AND the patents are for legitimate non-obvious inventions. Occurrences of the latter are very uncommon these days.

Re:Couldn't this hurt the US?

[randyest]

I mean the patent laws are anti-business

Eh? I guess that's true if your "business" is using the fruits of the research and development of other companies without any permission or compensation. But I'm afraid most business, at least those interested in developing new things, appreciate that they can use patents to help ensure they make some money to pay off that fat R&D bill before everyone else just reverse-engineers a product and puts out a knock-off version for half the price immediately.

How will small businesses and internationals compete against US businesses when all international products are up for review.

The same way they always have -- through innovation, superior products, better service, better prices, etc. You don't have to steal to compete.

Re:Couldn't this hurt the US?

[LostCluster]

But in this case, this is being done to protect a US-based company from being driven out of the business by a competitor that's making the same product without having to pay any of the R&D costs behind it.

Patents exist so whomever bears the R&D cost has some decent chance of profiting before everybody else rushes in and drives down the price. If you allow the patent system to fall, R&D dies with it.

Wait and See

[WindBourne]

Some of you are in a real hurry to convict Cornice with out having a grasp of what the situation is. They are a start-up with good technology and good sales. Basically they produce diskdrives that use very few parts. Cornice was started by a group that use to make Maxtor, Seagate, etc. They know well what the patents are. My understanding is that the company is not infringing, but both groups hope to pressure Cornice into trading patents with them.

Re:I hope those infringed patents don't include...

[Caiwyn]

Maxtor bought Quantum, not Seagate.

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.