Facebook, Motorola, Others Sued over Memory Storage Tech

By Douglas Perry
published

Patent troll targeting top tech companies in lawsuit.

Motorola Mobility, Adobe, LinkedIn, Facebook, Citigroup, Orbitz, Morgan Stanley and UBS Financial Services are being targeted by Parallel Iron, which alleges that its storage system patent has been violated.

The patent "Methods and systems for a storage system" describes a redundant storage system in an on-line transaction processing environment with multiple switches and a management system that can detect errors, generate messages based on those errors, initiate a backup, and deactivate affected memory sections automatically. The patent covers HDDs, cached disk arrays, as well as solid state media as storage devices.

The patent has been revised twice since its original publication in March of 2007 and was transferred from the inventor Ring Technology to Parallel Iron in 2010. The infringement claim does not mention any specific products that violate the patent, but Parallel Iron is asking the court for an injunction to keep the defendants from further infringement. As usual, Parallel Iron is also asking for damages, costs, expenses, and prejudgment and post-judgment interest.

18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • isoomega
    I'm finding that patent infringement is getting out of hand........ guess that is the new norm to make profits nowadays :D
    Reply
  • hoofhearted
    Everybody is trying to get their piece of the pie, whether it is theirs for the taking or not.
    Reply
  • azathoth
    "The infringement claim does not mention any specific products that violate the patent"

    "We don't actually know if there's infringement, but these giant tech companies must be using this extremely broad patent somewhere."

    -This is my understanding.
    Reply
  • ddpruitt
    I fail to see how someone can even file a lawsuit for infringement if they don't mention what products are infringing. Reminds me of something I saw on Wikipedia regarding a law article "The solution was criticized because it was practical".
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    Surely the list of people being sued are users, not providers, of storage systems that could potentially violate the patent
    ...
    Last time I checked Morgan Stanley, UBS and Citigroup were banks, not manufacturers of hard drives
    Reply
  • I think the next patent troll company that makes a mockery of the patent system - and loses in court, should have the entire staff of the company dragged out, thrown up against a wall, and shot.

    That'll send a clear message to other would-be patent troll companies out there.

    But... that's just my opinion :D
    Reply
  • freggo
    and kindly keep in mind whatever settlement comes of it, we, the consumers, ultimately pay the bill !

    Reply
  • rocknrollz
    I doubt it is the product they are selling. As none of these company's mentioned produce hard drives. I think it means the way their servers are being used.
    Reply
  • troll much? this is just sad...
    Reply
  • opmopadop
    IJustWantToPost18I think the next patent troll company that makes a mockery of the patent system - and loses in court, should have the entire staff of the company dragged out, thrown up against a wall, and shot.Apple?
    Reply