SMART Announces That Patent Office Confirms Rejection of Claims of Netlist '434 Patent

NEWARK, CA--(Marketwired - March 16, 2016) - SMART Modular Technologies, Inc., a leading designer, manufacturer and supplier of specialty memory, storage and hybrid solutions, including memory modules, Flash memory cards and other memory and solid state storage products, today announced that, while SMART's inter partes review ("IPR") against Netlist, Inc. U.S. Patent 8,001,434 ("'434") was not successful, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB") confirmed its rejection of 18 claims of Netlist's '434 patent. The rejected claims relate to memory modules (including LRDIMMs), solid state drives or SSDs, and storage class memory devices.

In its decision on SMART's IPR, the PTAB confirmed its decision reached in the prior IPR filed by SanDisk®, and stated:

"The '434 patent also is the subject of [SanDisk] IPR2014-00970 ("IPR-970"). We entered a final written decision in that case on December 14, 2015, concluding that claims 1, 14, 15, 19-25, and 27-34 are unpatentable…"

SMART brought its IPR against the '434 patent on additional grounds which the PTAB did not accept. 

Regarding the remaining claims of the '434 patent, the PTAB stated:

"Petitioner SanDisk Corporation has requested rehearing of our determination that it did not meet the burden to show unpatentability of claims 2, 5, 6, 17, 18, and 35."

Regarding SMART's IPR, SMART believes that its reasons for invalidity are correct and is preparing a petition for reconsideration. SMART will pursue appeals if reconsideration is not successful.

During IPR appeals, Netlist's lawsuits on the patents that are involved in IPRs are likely to remain stayed.

The rulings on Netlist's '434 do not affect the substantial successes that SMART had in invalidating almost all of the claims of Netlist U.S. Patents 7,289,386; 7,619,912; and 7,864,627.

About SMART Modular Technologies

SMART Modular Technologies is a global leader in specialty memory, storage and hybrid solutions serving the electronics industry for over 25 years. SMART Modular delivers solutions to a broad customer base, including OEMs that compete in the computing, networking, communications, storage, mobile and industrial markets. Focused on providing extensive customer-specific design capabilities, technical support and value-added testing services, SMART collaborates closely with their global OEM customers throughout their design process and across multiple projects to create memory, storage and hybrid solutions for demanding applications with differentiated requirements. Taking innovations from the design stage through manufacturing and supply, SMART Modular has developed a comprehensive product line comprised of DRAM, Flash and hybrid memory technologies across various form factors. SMART Modular is part of the SMART family of global companies. See www.smartm.com for more information.