A virtually silent war is being waged between Sandisk and a number of other memory manufacturers, and it's been going on since 2001.
Back in October of 2001, Sandisk sued Ritek, Memory and Pretec Electronics over claims that the companies were infringing Sandisk's flash storage technology patents. Considering the market penetration that flash-based storage has achieved, such a case is a significant one. However, as with all corporate legal battles, it's a long, drawn out process. During the course of the next few years, a U.S. District Judge overturned the lawsuit on two separate occasions.
Fast forward to today, and Reuters is reporting that the U.S. Supreme court has rejected the appeals against Sandisk's suit. Reuters writes that "the appeals court ruled [District Judge] Walker had misconstrued the patent at issue and sent it back to him for further proceedings".
So, that means Sandisk is winning again, right? Regardless, it's unlikely that this is the last we've heard of it, but luckily nothing dire has happened to flash storage prices over the past few years as a result.
