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NetApp Hits Sun With Patent Infringement Lawsuit

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-take-the-law-into-your-own-hands dept.

jcatcw writes "Computerworld reports, "Network Appliance Inc. today announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sun Microsystems Inc. seeking unspecified compensatory damages and an injunction that would prohibit Sun from developing or distributing products based on its ZFS file system technology. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Lufkin, Texas, charges that the Sun ZFS technology infringes on seven NetApp patents pertaining to data processing systems and related software.""

3 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Patent Pirate Venue - LUFKIN TX by JavaManJim · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope somehow that sanity prevails in the trial location. Network Applications Inc filed their case in Lufkin TX.

    Lufkin is very long way from anywhere. I live in Dallas TX and Lufkin is a long 3hr 18m trip South and East from here. Yet Network Applications Inc is a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company. Both Sun and Network Applications Inc are based in California.

    Formerly the haven for patent pirates was Marshall TX. The same thing is probably going on in Lufkin TX.

    Check out this article. "A Haven for Patent Pirates In one federal court in East Texas, plaintiffs have such an easy time winning patent-infringement lawsuits against big-tech companies that defendants often choose to settle rather than fight."
    http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech-Software/ wtr_16280,300,p1.html?a=f

    May the company with the best case win,
    Jim

  2. Ancient ext3 history by TopSpin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I recall when early releases of ext3 appeared someone suggested NetApp might take issue with it due to IP. Daniel Phillips got rather heated about the matter. Apparently NetApp didn't pursue anyone over it.

    At least Sun has the means to defend itself.

    --
    Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
  3. Re:Once again, the Patent Question to ask is... by miquels · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In 2000, Daniel Phillips started developing a new Linux filesystem that
    would have many of the features netapps WAFL has, and ZFS has now.

    This filesystem was called Tux2.

    He was quite sure that the patents NetApp had on this weren't valid,
    because of prior art, and because his algorithm was quite
    different and quite a bit smarter:

    http://uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0010.0/0 343.html

    Yet somewhere in 2002, he gave up on Tux2, presumably due to pressure
    from netapp: http://lkml.org/lkml/2002/8/26/138 .

    I wonder what will happen to BTRFS in light of this new NetApp
    legal action: http://oss.oracle.com/projects/btrfs/

    Mike.

    --
    Living is a horizontal fall