History (1991): Conner and Fujitsu, Following Victims of Rodime

Are they all going to pay up?

Rodime Inc. (Boca Raton, FL) has mailed to 32 of its best competitors a demand of royalties for patent infringement on its 3.5-inch HDDs.

Alps Electric, lBM and MiniScribe/Maxtor have already paid off. Conner Peripherals and Fujitsu also had to follow, and many others will probably do the same.

Under the term of its settlement with Rodime, Conner has been granted a royalty-free license and agreed to pay a one-time fee that was not revealed but that could amount to around $10 million, speculated some US industry analysts. Conner also granted Rodime a royalty-free license to patents covering Conner’s inch-high, low-profile form factor design and a patent covering Conner’s 2.5-inch form factor design.

With Fujitsu, Rodime entered into a non-exclusive royalty free patent cross licensing agreement for the use of certain patents relating to 3.5-inch HDDs. The agreement includes an undisclosed balancing payments to Rodime.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠42, published on July 1991.

Note: In 2000, Rodime performed a reverse takeover of the Littlewoods gaming business, thus changing its principal business to gaming and betting. Soon after, it changed its name to Sportech PLC.