SanDisk Corp. is suing 25 companies, including South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc., for allegedly infringing patents used in removable flash storage products including MP3 players and USB flash drives.
The Milpitas, Calif., chip maker has also filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), asking to have defendants in the court cases barred from importing products into the U.S.
The company filed two lawsuits in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin, one alleging the infringement of five patents in the ITC complaint and another that includes two additional patents not involved in the ITC action.The court and ITC complaints could affect the prices and availability of products made by companies targeted in the suit if SanDisk wins and the companies are barred from importing products into the U.S.
The suit also covers makers of CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards and other removable flash storage products used in digital cameras, mobile phones and other gadgets, and includes companies from around the world, such as Japan’s Buffalo Inc., Acer Inc. affiliate Apacer Technology Inc. in Taiwan, and Kingston Technology Co. in Fountain Valley, Calif.
