ITC may ban certain Hard Drives

CB Droege 12 Oct, 2007 at 9:36am ET Article published in Tech

A California couple, Steven and Mary Reiber, have convinced the International Trade Commission (ITC) to investigate Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell for violating the Tariff act of 1930.

Under the act, no products may be imported to the United States if it infringes upon a patent held by a US citizen. The Reiber’s hold a Patent for “Dissipative ceramic bonding tool tip”, and the Hard Drives produced or used by these five companies include the technology referred to in the patent.

The ITC has the authority to ban the import of products that break these rules, but they can be overruled, at least in part, by the US Court of Appeals.

Comments

12 Oct 2007 ~ 9:41am GHoosdum Uh oh. That leaves us with, what, Maxtor and Samsung?

If it comes to it, I'm sure they've got some kind of backup technology anyway.
12 Oct 2007 ~ 5:48pm Linc Maxtor is owned by Seagate now, and Samsung is probably rebranded from another manufacturer.
13 Oct 2007 ~ 7:20am Zuntar DOH!
13 Oct 2007 ~ 10:24am yagga Doh! Why you!...
14 Oct 2007 ~ 10:36pm mas0n Business as we know it will not come to a halt because of some whiny patent holder who is several decades too late.