Board of Patent in Favor Convolve Against Seagate

The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office found in favor of technology company Convolve Inc. and against Seagate Technology Inc. in a patent dispute brought by Convolve against Seagate regarding disk drive technology. The Board denied Seagate’s motions challenging the patentability of Convolve’s claims. Seagate did not appeal the Board’s decision.

Convolve’s lead counsel in the interference, Charles L. ("Chico") Gholz of Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, P.C., said, "We are extremely pleased with the Board’s decision, which vindicates Convolve’s position that it made the invention in dispute first and that Seagate derived that invention from Convolve. Also, the Board made important law on the proper interpretation of a highly controversial section of the patent statute, 35 U.S.C. $ 135(b)(2)." Convolve was represented by Chico Gholz and Todd Baker of Oblon, Spivak.

Convolve and its licensor MIT are also seeking damages in an ongoing lawsuit against Seagate and its customer Compaq Computer Corp. in which Convolve and MIT allege infringement of two related patents as well as numerous trade secret misappropriations, all involving Convolve's proprietary disk drive technologies. The suit was initially filed in July 2000 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A trial date has not been set.

HP, which acquired Compaq in 2002, stated in their recent 10K dated January 2, 2008, that Seagate was indemnifying them on one patent in this nearly 8-year litigation and they are seeking to have Seagate indemnify them with respect to the second patent in the suit.

Convolve is the exclusive licensee of patented motion control technology called Input Shaping, originally developed at and licensed from MIT. This technology permits disk drives to perform seeks significantly faster and also dramatically reduces the seek noise. Convolve’s core vibration reduction technology is licensed to many large companies worldwide and the U.S. government.

Convolve

Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, P.C