In the ongoing legal battle between Diablo technologies and Netlist, Netlist won a victory today as the United States Patent and Trademark Office denied 4 out of 5 petitions for Inter Parts Reviews (IPR) of Netlist patents. SanDisk, who is partnered with Diablo Technologies to produce the ULLtraDIMM, which is the center of the IPR petitions, filed the petitions.
In the ongoing legal battle between Diablo technologies and Netlist, Netlist won a victory today as the United States Patent and Trademark Office denied 4 out of 5 petitions for Inter Parts Reviews (IPR) of Netlist patents. SanDisk, who is partnered with Diablo Technologies to produce the ULLtraDIMM, which is the center of the IPR petitions, filed the petitions.
Three of the petitions were denied in their entirety and the fourth was denied as to some of the challenged claims. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board found that SanDisk "failed to establish a reasonable likelihood of showing the unpatentability of at least one claim from the challenged patents." While this won't end the legal battle between the companies, Netlist feels that SanDisk is going to have more of a challenge to convince a jury that the patents are invalid after these petitions are denied.
The heart of this legal back and forth is the ULLtraDIMM. Both Netlist and the partnered SanDisk/Diablo are claiming the other is either using technology within or technology that is fundamental to the architecture of the product and can't be patented. While the ruling is in Netlist's favor, the legal battle may continue into the future.
