STEC Retains Patent Law Firm

STEC, Inc. announced that in light of the recent allegations of patent infringement by Seagate Technology, the company has engaged the services of the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (WilmerHale).

WilmerHale has a staff of more than 1,000 lawyers with offices throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. The firm’s practice includes more than 350 litigators with unmatched trial, appellate and Supreme Court experience, and includes an intellectual property practice enriched by the expertise of more than 120 attorneys and technology specialists holding scientific or technical degrees. In regards to some of WilmerHale’s most recent cases, the firm:

• Represented Broadcom in a major series of disputes with Qualcomm, including seven separate cases in three separate forums, implicating billions of dollars in revenues in the market for advanced computer chips for use in cellular telephones. WilmerHale prevailed in each of the three cases to reach trial.
• Successfully defended STMicroelectronics (ST) in two cases initiated in the U.S. International Trade Commission by SanDisk. SanDisk initiated the first investigation based on a patent relating to flash memory circuits, for which it had obtained an exclusion order against Samsung. WilmerHale convinced the Commission, following a seven-day trial, that ST had not infringed the patent. WilmerHale also prevailed in a second investigation, initiated by SanDisk shortly after the termination of the first proceeding, based on the same patent as in the first investigation, as well as an additional patent.

"We are extremely confident in our technology and patents in the area of SSDs and IC stacking and equally confident in the abilities of our attorneys at WilmerHale," said Manouch Moshayedi, chairman and chief executive officer of STEC. "They have shown a consistent track record of success in litigation and defense of their clients over their 90-year history, and we believe they will do an excellent job defending our company against this lawsuit. We sincerely believe that our shareholders will receive the best representation possible in the courts by having WilmerHale at our side. We also believe that the courts will side in our favor and find that our products were being manufactured and sold by us into the market long before any such patents were filed by Seagate as indicated, for example, by our product offerings that were listed in our initial Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed with the SEC on March 15, 2000. Since the news of the filing of this lawsuit by Seagate became public, we have only received sentiments of support and positive remarks from our largest customers with the basic messages of full speed ahead with integration of our SSDs into their systems."

STEC, Inc.

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (WilmerHale)