IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Netlist, Inc.
(NASDAQ: NLST) announced today that the Examiner in the
consolidated reexamination of U.S. Pat. No. 7,619,912 ("'912
Patent") issued an Answer maintaining the patentability of 92
claims related to LRDIMM. The reexaminations were brought in
the United States Patent and
Trademark Office (USPTO) by Google Inc., Inphi Corporation, and
SMART Modular Technologies.
The 92 patentable claims are generally directed to the
fundamental concept of rank multiplication which is integral to the
design of the LRDIMM. The Examiner issued the Answer on
January 14, 2015, in response to
voluminous appeal briefs filed by Google, Inphi, and SMART
Modular. The Examiner considered arguments from all parties
and ultimately maintained his conclusions as to the patentability
of these claims, while maintaining the rejection of 11 other
claims. The parties will now have the opportunity to file
rebuttal briefs before the reexamination proceeds to the Patent
Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) for oral arguments, likely later
this year or early next.
"We are very pleased that the Examiner has again confirmed the
patentability of these important claims in our '912 Patent," said
Netlist Vice President of Intellectual Property and Licensing,
Noel Whitley. "We look forward
to the opportunity to present our case to the PTAB, and are
confident that our industry-leading IP will continue to be
confirmed despite vigorous challenges by our opponents."
The '912 Patent is also the subject of litigation between
Netlist and Google in the Northern District of California and Netlist and Inphi in the
Central District of California. Both sets of litigation have
been stayed pending the outcome of this and other reexamination
proceedings.
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.
For more information, please contact:
Brainerd Communicators, Inc.
Mike Smargiassi/Jenny Perales
NLST@braincomm.com
(212) 986-6667
To view the original version on PR Newswire,
visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/uspto-examiner-reconfirms-patentability-of-netlists-lrdimm-patent-claims-300023318.html
SOURCE Netlist, Inc.