Western Digital Fined $316m For Infringing Data Security Patent

Tom Jowitt,
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Court rules storage giant Western Digital must pay $315.7m in damages, after another patent infringement loss

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Western Digital has lost a patent infringement legal battle regarding data encryption that has been ongoing since 2016.

According to Reuters, a jury in a California federal court ruled on Friday that Western Digital must pay $315.7 million in damages for violating a patent owner’s rights in data security technology.

It has been an eventful period for the storage giant. In October 2023 Western Digital said it would split itself into two companies focusing on hard drives and flash memory, after it walked away from long-running merger talks with Japan’s Kioxa.

The split is slated to take place in the second half of 2024.

Patent infringement

Now according to the Reuters report, the jury in California has determined that several Western Digital self-encrypting hard drive products had infringed a SPEX Technologies patent covering data encryption innovations, a SPEX attorney reportedly stated in an email.

San Jose, California-based SPEX had sued Western Digital eight years ago in 2016.

SPEX alleged it had bought the patent at issue from Spyrus, which had developed encryption technology to secure sensitive communications for storage devices.

The patents were filed in back in 1997, and are the US6088802A and US6003135A.

Both the patents enable a peripheral device to communicate with a host computing device to enable one or more security operations.

Spyrus co-founder Sue Pontius reportedly said she was grateful to the jury for the verdict. SPEX’s lead attorney, Marc Fenster, said the verdict was “a vindication of Sue Pontius and her perseverance.”

Appeal likely

A Western Digital spokesperson said the company disagrees with the verdict and plans to challenge it in post-trial motions and an appeal if necessary.

The lawsuit had alleged that Western Digital data storage devices including its Ultrastar, My Book and My Passport products infringed the patent.

Western Digital had denied the allegations.

But according to Reuters, this is not the first time that Western Digital has been pinged for patent violations.

A separate case in July saw a jury in California rule that Western Digital owned over $262 million for infringing patents related to increasing hard drive storage capacity.