History 2000: Compaq and Seagate Sued for $800 Million

A company named Convolve, which we’d never heard of before, although it’s linked to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has filed a lawsuit vs. Compaq Computer and Seagate Technology, accusing them of stealing its patented Input Shaping technology in a recent line of Seagate drives resold by Compaq.

Convolve is pointing a finger more specifically at the new Sound Barrier Technology that Seagate has incorporated in its latest U5 line of desktop drives, and which allows for the reduction of noise levels by several decibels.

Three MIT researchers were behind the method to perfect a vibration control technology, including Dr. Neil Sunger, founder of Convolve. The university is involved in the suit, as part of its obligations through a licensing agreement with Convolve.

According to the complaint, “For more than a year, beginning in October 1998, Convolve held discussions with and gave demonstrations for engineers and executives of both Compaq and Seagate, for the purpose of licensing the technologies to these two companies.”

Convolve has also accused both firms of helping themselves to its Quiet and Quick technologies, which allow users of the disk drive to select between faster or quieter performance. The plaintiffs are seeking no less than $800 million from Seagate and Compaq.

The US District Court Southern District of New York will hear the case.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 151 on August 2000 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.

Note: On July 2013, US District Court for the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment in favour of the defendants and found that Compaq and Seagate did not misappropriate Convolve’s trade secrets.