Asustek Sues IBM Over Patent

Asustek Computer has filed suit against IBM over alleged infringement of two patents, just a few months after IBM filed a similar action against the Taiwanese company earlier this year.

Asustek filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California last week. In the filing, Asustek asked the court for relief from the alleged IBM infringements as well as monetary damages.

One of the Asustek patents is for a method for providing remote storage for Internet appliances, while the other relates to servers. Asustek alleges the patents have been infringed by IBM in components, software and hardware related to storage area networking equipment and servers.

The Asustek suit comes four months after the U.S. International Trade Commission took up a case for IBM against Asustek for the importation of equipment using certain PC power supplies, cooling fans and clustering technologies that IBM says infringe three of its patents.

Asustek declined to comment. IBM could not immediately be reached for comment.