Pure Storage, Dell Settle Litigation Launched by EMC
October 19 2016 - 1:30PM
Dow Jones News
Pure Storage Inc. and Dell Technologies ended a three-year legal
battle launched by EMC Corp., which was recently acquired by the
big computer maker.
Pure Storage agreed to pay Dell $30 million under a settlement
disclosed Wednesday.
The settlement removes a longtime worry for Pure Storage, an
upstart challenger in the market for data-storage equipment that
went public last year. The Silicon Valley company helped build a
segment of the market that uses chips called flash memory instead
of disk drives to store data.
EMC, an industry pioneer originally known for disk-based
systems, is now also a major supplier of systems using flash
technology. EMC, whose $60 billion sale to Dell was completed last
month, in 2013 filed a suit that accused Pure Storage of patent
infringement, and later filed an additional suit alleging that Pure
Storage's hiring of EMC employees amounted to a scheme to steal
EMC's confidential information. Pure Storage denied the allegations
and filed counter-charges against EMC.
The patent at issue in the case involves software that handles a
function known as deduplication, which saves storage space by
eliminating extra copies of data. A federal jury in Delaware
earlier in the year found Pure Storage guilty of infringement and
awarded $14 million in damages. But in September a judge set aside
that verdict, ordering a new trial to determine whether a key
patent at issue is the case is valid.
That case focused on an older generation of Pure Storage
equipment, which was subsequently upgraded with software that Pure
Storage said no longer uses technology at issue in the case. But
EMC had filed additional charges that cited newer Pure Storage
products.
Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 19, 2016 13:15 ET (17:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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