I. Introduction
In response to increasing market pressure on their core business, Seagate Technologies is asserting a handful of its patents against manufacturers of flash memory-based solid state drives (SSDs) products. Seagate Technology is currently the world’s largest manufacturer of hard-disk drives (HDDs), but lags behind several competitors in the SSD market. [1] On Monday, April 14th, Seagate Technology filed a patent infringement lawsuit against STEC. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges infringement of four Seagate patents. [2] Industry commentators believe that Seagate’s lawsuit is a result of increasing market pressure on their core business, which competes directly with that of STEC. By filing an infringement lawsuit now, Seagate opens several options for itself in the face of a potential collapse in sales for its major products.
In recent years, SSDs have made