OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 14,
2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Netlist, Inc. (NASDAQ: NLST) announced
today that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez
Rogers of the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California granted
Netlist's Special Motion to Strike Diablo's claims against Netlist
for breach of contract, unfair competition, and interference with
Diablo's customers. The
Court also ruled that Netlist is entitled to reasonable attorneys'
fees and costs associated with Netlist's filing of the Special
Motion to Strike.
With all of its claims having now been stricken, Diablo has no affirmative claims to pursue in
the trade secret lawsuit while Netlist's claims for
misappropriation and breach of contract remain intact as the
March 9, 2014 trial date
approaches. Under the Court's order issued January 12, Judge Gonzales Rogers found that Netlist's actions,
including filing the trade secret law suit and discussing the suit
with customers, fell squarely within California statutes designed to protect
constitutional free speech and statements related to
litigation. One of these statutes allows for early
dismissal of meritless claims aimed at chilling
protected speech, so as to avoid costly, time-consuming
litigation.
"We are pleased that the court acted quickly in striking
Diablo's frivolous claims", said
C.K. Hong, Netlist's Chief Executive
Officer. "We remained confident throughout that Diablo's claims would not survive legal
scrutiny. Thankfully, neither we nor the court will be forced
to waste any more resources on Diablo's claims, and Diablo will cover the expenses we incurred to
bring this to the court's attention."
This ruling came on the heels of Judge Gonzalez Rogers taking the rare step of ordering
a preliminary injunction against Diablo from manufacturing, using, distributing
or selling high-speed memory chips used by SanDisk and other major
computer manufacturers.
About Netlist:
Netlist, Inc. designs and manufactures
high-performance, logic-based memory subsystems for server and
storage applications for cloud computing. Netlist's flagship
products include NVvault™ and EXPRESSvault™ family of hybrid memory
products that significantly accelerate system performance and
provide mission critical fault tolerance, HyperCloud®, a patented
memory technology that breaks traditional performance barriers, and
a broad portfolio of industrial Flash and specialty memory
subsystems including VLP (very low profile) DIMMs and Planar-X
RDIMMs. Netlist has steadily invested in and grown its worldwide IP
portfolio, which now includes 81 issued and pending patents in the
areas of high performance memory and hybrid memory
technologies.
Netlist develops technology solutions for customer applications
in which high-speed, high-capacity, small form factor and efficient
heat dissipation are key requirements for system memory. These
customers include OEMs and hyperscale datacenter operators that
design and build servers, storage systems and high-performance
computing clusters, engineering workstations and telecommunications
equipment. Founded in 2000, Netlist is headquartered in
Irvine, CA with manufacturing
facilities in Suzhou, People's Republic
of China. Learn more at www.netlist.com.
Safe Harbor Statement:
This news release contains
forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future
performance of Netlist. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those expected or projected. These risks and
uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks associated
with the launch and commercial success of our products, programs
and technologies; the success of product partnerships; continuing
development, qualification and volume production of
EXPRESSvault™, NVvault™,
HyperCloud® and VLP Planar-X RDIMM; the timing and
magnitude of the anticipated decrease in sales to our key customer;
our ability to leverage our NVvault™ technology in a
more diverse customer base; the rapidly-changing nature of
technology; risks associated with intellectual property, including
patent infringement litigation against us as well as the costs and
unpredictability of litigation over infringement of our
intellectual property and the possibility of our patents being
reexamined by the United States Patent and Trademark office;
volatility in the pricing of DRAM ICs and NAND; changes in and
uncertainty of customer acceptance of, and demand for, our existing
products and products under development, including uncertainty of
and/or delays in product orders and product qualifications; delays
in the Company's and its customers' product releases and
development; introductions of new products by competitors; changes
in end-user demand for technology solutions; the Company's ability
to attract and retain skilled personnel; the Company's reliance on
suppliers of critical components and vendors in the supply chain;
fluctuations in the market price of critical components; evolving
industry standards; and the political and regulatory environment in
the People's Republic of China.
Other risks and uncertainties are described in the Company's annual
report on Form 10-K filed on March 18,
2014, and subsequent filings with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission made by the Company from time to time. Except
as required by law, Netlist undertakes no obligation to publicly
update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a
result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/court-throws-out-diablos-countersuit-against-netlist-300020478.html
SOURCE Netlist, Inc.