IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Netlist, Inc.
(NASDAQ: NLST) announced today that the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Federal Circuit denied an emergency motion from Diablo
Technologies, Inc., asking the Federal Circuit to stay the
preliminary injunction entered against controller chips used by
SanDisk in its high-speed ULLtraDIMM SSD product line. The
injunction blocks Diablo from
supplying SanDisk the chipset upon which the ULLtraDIMM is
built.
The preliminary injunction was ordered January 12, 2015 by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of California after a lengthy briefing and a full
hearing. Diablo asked the
Federal Circuit to stay the injunction pending resolution of their
appeal and further asked for an expedited briefing schedule, all of
which Netlist vigorously opposed. The Federal Circuit denied
Diablo's requests, leaving the
injunction intact, and further denied their request to expedite the
appeal.
SanDisk filed a narrower appeal, asking the Federal Circuit to
allow SanDisk to sell its existing inventory of controller chips
purchased from Diablo prior to the
injunction, and also asked for an expedited appeal. Netlist
opposed these motions as well. The Federal Circuit denied the
motion to expedite the appeal, but granted the motion to stay the
injunction as to SanDisk's existing inventory of the now enjoined
controller chips. SanDisk will not, however, be able to
acquire additional parts from Diablo once SanDisk's existing inventory is
exhausted. Further, the Federal Circuit specifically noted
that "[t]his order should not be construed to preclude Netlist from
moving at the district court to hold any entity in contempt for
aiding and abetting in the violation of the injunction."
"We are very pleased that the appeals court sided with the
district court in rejecting this latest attempt by Diablo to lift the injunction", said
C.K. Hong, Netlist's Chief Executive
Officer. "Our opponents have used every legal maneuver to delay and
avoid justice in this case. They are now out of options – the
injunction will stand until we get our day in court. We are
confident of prevailing at trial and securing a permanent
injunction that will prevent future unauthorized use of Netlist's
intellectual property."
The jury trial is set to begin March 9,
2015 in Oakland, California
and pertains to trade secret misappropriation and breach of
contract. Many of the underlying issues were already considered by
the Court and decided in Netlist's favor in the course of its
issuance of the preliminary injunction. The injunction order
specifically identified ULLtraDIMM as well as IBM's eXFlash
modules, although the injunction affects all modules containing
Diablo components. Other OEMs,
including Huawei, Lenovo and Supermicro have announced plans to
offer ULLtraDIMMs in certain of their server platforms.
About Netlist:
Netlist, Inc. designs and manufactures high-performance,
logic-based memory subsystems for server and storage applications
for cloud computing. Netlist's flagship products include NVvault™
and EXPRESSvault™ family of hybrid memory products that
significantly accelerate system performance and provide mission
critical fault tolerance, HyperCloud®, a patented memory technology
that breaks traditional performance barriers, and a broad portfolio
of industrial Flash and specialty memory subsystems including VLP
(very low profile) DIMMs and Planar-X RDIMMs. Netlist has steadily
invested in and grown its worldwide IP portfolio, which now
includes 81 issued and pending patents in the areas of high
performance memory and hybrid memory technologies.
Netlist develops technology solutions for customer applications
in which high-speed, high-capacity, small form factor and efficient
heat dissipation are key requirements for system memory. These
customers include OEMs and hyperscale datacenter operators that
design and build servers, storage systems and high-performance
computing clusters, engineering workstations and telecommunications
equipment. Founded in 2000, Netlist is headquartered in
Irvine, CA with manufacturing
facilities in Suzhou, People's Republic
of China. Learn more at www.netlist.com.
Safe Harbor Statement:
This news release contains forward-looking statements
regarding future events and the future performance of Netlist.
These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties
that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
expected or projected. These risks and uncertainties include, but
are not limited to, risks associated with the launch and commercial
success of our products, programs and technologies; the success of
product partnerships; continuing development, qualification and
volume production of EXPRESSvault™,
NVvault™, HyperCloud® and VLP Planar-X
RDIMM; the timing and magnitude of the anticipated decrease in
sales to our key customer; our ability to leverage our
NVvault™ technology in a more diverse customer base;
the rapidly-changing nature of technology; risks associated with
intellectual property, including patent infringement litigation
against us as well as the costs and unpredictability of litigation
over infringement of our intellectual property and the possibility
of our patents being reexamined by the United States Patent and
Trademark office; volatility in the pricing of DRAM ICs and NAND;
changes in and uncertainty of customer acceptance of, and demand
for, our existing products and products under development,
including uncertainty of and/or delays in product orders and
product qualifications; delays in the Company's and its customers'
product releases and development; introductions of new products by
competitors; changes in end-user demand for technology solutions;
the Company's ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; the
Company's reliance on suppliers of critical components and vendors
in the supply chain; fluctuations in the market price of critical
components; evolving industry standards; and the political and
regulatory environment in the People's
Republic of China. Other risks and uncertainties are
described in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed on
March 18, 2014, and subsequent
filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made by
the Company from time to time. Except as required by law, Netlist
undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise.
For more information, please contact:
Brainerd Communicators, Inc.
Mike Smargiassi/Jenny Perales
NLST@braincomm.com
(212) 986-6667
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SOURCE Netlist, Inc.