History (1991): After IBM, Alps Will Pay Royalties to Rodime

Rodime plc (Glenrothes, Scotland) owns pending patents on 3.5-inch HDD heads and their positioning, the process to fix the platter, the motor, etc.

The Scottish company has notified almost all U.S. and Japanese manufacturers of these small drives that they may have infringed these patents and may have to pay royalties.

IBM has accepted to pay a non disclosed amount, estimated at $30 million, to use the patents.

This time, it’s Alps Electric Co. (Tokyo, Japan) that recognized the validity of Rodime’s patents and both firms have signed a cross licensing agreement that includes a non disclosed payment by Alps and the use by Rodime of some patents held by Alps.

This last one manufactures HDDs, its most recent one is the DRR040N, a 16mm thick 42.8MB 3.5-inch drive.

All this comes in handy for Rodime that has broken off talks with Victor Co. of Japan Ltd. for a manufacturing agreement on one-inch high 120MB drives because of financial terms, and now has to look for new partnerships.

In fiscal 1991 ended December 31, Rodime reported sales of $22.38 million and after-tax loss of $S.64 million, compared with $22.09 million and $4.01 million respectively in 1990. In FY90, the company had reported a $93.2 million turnover and an operating loss of $15.9 million.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠40, published on May 1991.