SanDisk Sues To Enforce Memory System Patents

[Apoptosis]

SANDISK SUES TO ENFORCE MEMORY SYSTEM PATENTS

Twenty-Five Card Vendors and Controller Suppliers Named in Patent Infringement Suits

MILPITAS, CALIFORNIA, October 24, 2007 – SanDisk® Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) today announced the filing of three patent infringement actions against 25 companies that manufacture, sell and import USB flash drives, CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards, MP3/media players and/or other removable flash storage products. The actions, filed in the United States District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin and in the United States International Trade Commission (“ITC”), allege that the defendants have infringed various SanDisk system-level patents, and seek damages and a permanent injunction in the federal court actions, as well as a permanent exclusion order from the ITC banning importation of the products into the United States.

“These actions demonstrate SanDisk’s long-term commitment to enforcing its patents, both to protect our investment in research and development by obtaining a fair return on that investment, and out of fairness to third-parties that participate in our patent licensing program,” said E. Earle Thompson, Chief Intellectual Property Counsel at SanDisk. “Our goal is to resolve these matters by offering the defendants the opportunity to participate in our patent licensing program for card and system technology. Otherwise, we will aggressively pursue these actions, seeking a prompt judicial resolution awarding damages, obtaining injunctive relief and banning importation of infringing product.”

In the ITC action, SanDisk is suing numerous companies for infringement of five SanDisk patents, including:

* ACP-EP Memory
* A-Data
* Apacer
* Behavior Computer (d/b/a Emprex)
* Buffalo
* Chipsbank
* Corsair Memory
* Dane-Elec
* Edge
* Imation/Memorex
* Interactive Media (d/b/aKanguru)
* Kaser
* Kingston
* LG Electronics
* Phison Electronics
* PNY
* PQI
* Silicon Motion
* Skymedi
* Transcend
* TSR (d/b/a T.One)
* USBest
* Verbatim
* Welldone Company
* Zotek/Zodata (d/b/a Huke)

In the first Wisconsin District Court case, SanDisk is suing numerous companies for infringement of the five patents also at issue in the ITC complaint, including:


* ACP-EP Memory
* A-Data
* Apacer
* Behavior Computer (d/b/a Emprex)
* Buffalo
* Chipsbank
* Corsair Memory
* Dane-Elec
* Edge
* Imation/Memorex
* Interactive Media (d/b/a Kanguru)
* Kingston
* LG Electronics
* Phison Electronics
* PNY
* PQI
* Silicon Motion
* Skymedi
* Transcend
* TSR (d/b/a T.One)
* USBest
* Verbatim
* Welldone Company
* Zotek/Zodata (d/b/a Huke).

In the second Wisconsin District Court case, SanDisk is suing numerous companies for infringement of an additional two patents that are not involved in the ITC action or the first Wisconsin District Court case, including:

* A-Data
* Apacer
* Behavior Computer (d/b/a Emprex)
* Buffalo
* Dane-Elec
* Kingston
* Phison Electronics
* PQI
* PNY
* Skymedi
* Silicon Motion
* Transcend
* USBest
* Verbatim
* Zotek/Zodata (d/b/a Huke)

SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is one of the world’s largest suppliers of flash data storage card products, using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas, California, and has operations worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the United States.

[Apoptosis]

I've contacts a number of memory companies and of course all the big names have declined to comment as they are now under a gag order. Sandisk did respond back to me this morning and let me know exactly which patents have been infringed upon.

The patents SanDisk is asserting are as follows:

In the first Wisconsin district court case, we are asserting that the defendant's controllers, flash drives and memory card, infringe claims in one or more of the following patents:

· US Patent No. 6,149,316
· US Patent No. 6,757,842

In the ITC (and the second related Wisconsin case) we are asserting that the defendants' controllers, flash drives, memory cards and media players infringe claims in one or more of the following patents:

· US Patent No. 6,426,893
· US Patent No. 6,763,424
· US Patent No. 5,719,808
· US Patent No. 6,947,332
· US Patent No. 7,137,011

So the main case has two claims...

US Patent No. 6,149,316 and 6,757,842 deals with the Flash EEprom system -
A system of Flash EEprom memory chips with controlling circuits serves as non-volatile memory such as that provided by magnetic disk drives. Improvements include selective multiple sector erase, in which any combinations of Flash sectors may be erased together. Selective sectors among the selected combination may also be de-selected during the erase operation. Another improvement is the ability to remap and replace defective cells with substitute cells. The remapping is performed automatically as soon as a defective cell is detected. When the number of defects in a Flash sector becomes large, the whole sector is remapped. Yet another improvement is the use of a write cache to reduce the number of writes to the Flash EEprom memory, thereby minimizing the stress to the device from undergoing too many write/erase cycling.

[stev]

Corsair Memory was named in those suits. Does this mean that the 4Gb thumb/jump drive from the contest is being recalled as
Exhibit A.

[Apoptosis]

Corsair Memory was named in those suits. Does this mean that the 4Gb thumb/jump drive from the contest is being recalled as
Exhibit A.

haha No Doubt!

Shocking how Ma Labs (Super Talent) and OCZ Technology were not named in it... Actually a number of flash makers are not in it.