IRVINE, Calif., March 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Netlist, Inc.
(NASDAQ: NLST) announced today that it has prevailed against a
second wave of attacks on the validity of three Netlist patents
asserted against the ULLtraDIMM product from SanDisk and Diablo
Technologies. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
for the second time, rejected concerted attempts to invalidate
these fundamental patents.
SanDisk first requested Inter Partes Review (IPR) of these three
patents in June 2014. Smart Modular
filed separate petitions requesting IPR of the same patents two
months later. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB")
denied all of these petitions in their entirety, with the last of
the decisions issued March 13,
2015. The three Netlist patents are part of a patent
infringement action against SanDisk and Diablo that is currently pending in the U.S.
District Court of the Northern District of California.
The patents cover fundamental aspects of the high performance
memory modules operating in the memory channel, particularly hybrid
memory that combine the benefits of DRAM and flash. U.S. Pat. No.
8,516,185 relates to the fundamental distributed buffer
architecture developed for HyperCloud®, and adopted by the industry
for DDR4 LRDIMM. U.S. Pat. No's 8,301,833 and 8,516,187 arose out
of NVvault™, and relate to clocking and buffering techniques that
are critical to the design of Non-Volatile DIMMs (NVDIMMs), such as
the NVvault®, ULLtraDIMM, and Netlist's next-generation
HyperVault®.
C.K. Hong, Netlist's Chief
Executive Officer said, "We are very pleased that the PTAB has
rejected attacks on the validity of our patents not once, but twice
– a rare outcome. These seminal patents are part of a comprehensive
and battle-tested IP portfolio covering high-performance memory
channel products. Importantly, our inventions are not only being
recognized by the USPTO but also by the industry as it moves to
widely adopt Netlist's proprietary technologies developed and
patented many years ago."
Fifteen petitions in total have been filed against the seven
Netlist patents asserted against SanDisk and Diablo. Both parties are now barred from
filing IPR petitions on the '185, '833, and '187 patents in the
pending litigation. The PTAB did institute reviews of two Netlist
patents related to self-test technologies and two patents related
to load reduction. These reviews are expected to conclude
later this year.
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 88 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
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SOURCE Netlist, Inc.