Milpitas, Calif. – Flash memory maker SanDisk announced a broad legal campaign against 25 brands competing in the flash memory market, including LG, Imation, Verbatim, PNY and Kingston.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin, a common venue for such patent cases. SanDisk also brought action against companies in the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) seeking to ban the importation of products that infringe on SanDisk flash patents.
The suit covers a range of categories including USB flash drives, CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards, and MP3/media players
“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,” said E. Earle Thompson, SanDisk’ chief intellectual property counsel, in a statement announcing the legal action.
In the ITC case, SanDisk is suing companies for infringement of five SanDisk patents. The companies include: 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 the same set of companies over the five patents in addition to ACP-EP Memory. The company is also suing most of the same firms over two patents not covered in the ITC case.
