Pure Storage, Dell Settle Litigation Launched by EMC

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)

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