Cornice, Seagate Partly Settle Hard-Drive Dispute

Cornice has settled one part of a patent infringement dispute with Seagate Technology over 1-inch hard-disk drives by agreeing to stop manufacturing the drives in question.

In accordance with the agreement, Cornice will stop producing 1GB, 1.5GB, and 2GB versions of its 1-inch hard-disk drive by the end of May, the two companies said in a statement. The agreement brings to an end the action Seagate had been pursuing against Cornice at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which was due to begin hearing the case this week.

The settlement doesn't affect two other lawsuits--a suit and a countersuit--filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Legal Wrangling

The spat began in June 2004 when Seagate filed a lawsuit alleging that Cornice's drives violated six of Seagate's patents. The lawsuit seeks to prevent Cornice from selling the drives in the United States and asks for monetary damages. Seagate followed this lawsuit with the now-settled ITC complaint in July. Cornice fired back in August with a countersuit against Seagate in the federal court in Delaware.

A trial in Delaware remains on the docket for June 2006, the two companies said.

The resolution of the ITC lawsuit may represent a hollow victory for Seagate, which had asked the ITC to ban U.S. importation of the drives and of devices that use them. Drives from both companies and their competitors are found in an increasing number of digital music players. The market is moving fast. however, and Cornice had already begun to push drives with more capacity.

Cornice's current highest-capacity model is a 3GB drive, and the company plans to launch a new product in the coming weeks, it said.

Seagate's highest-capacity 1-inch drive is currently a 6GB model.