A German company has taken Western Digital to court for alleged patent infringement. Western Digital has to pay a hefty fine, but is appealing against the decision.

The California court has fined Western Digital $262 million for patent infringement. The complaint came from MR Technology, a German technology company. MR Technology claimed that Western Digital had been illegally using its patented technology since 2018 and won the case in court.

Specifically, the lawsuit concerned two patents that the plaintiff had filed. In any case, save yourself the trouble of looking through the technical patent documents. The two patents in dispute relate to magnetic recording technology in hard drives.

Magnetic recording

One proposes “a recording medium that solves the writable problem of perpendicular recording media” by using a special multilayer alternating spring-recording medium coupling. Another patent deals with the “torque effect” and optimizations for multilayer magnetic recording media.

The German prosecutor’s office says that Western Digital has made “extensive use” of its registered patents since 2018. The hard drive manufacturer managed to triple the surface density of its drives. Without these innovations, Western Digital would not have been able to be so competitive in the storage market, the plaintiffs’ lawyers further argued.

In the appeal proceedings

Western Digital is not simply accepting the verdict. The company insists that it only uses technologies designed and developed by its own research team. The lawsuit is an attempt to attribute “false honor” to Dieter Suess, the founder of MR Technology, the company responded to Reuters. In other words, Western Digital does not intend to transfer the amount of 262 million euros to MR Technology and will appeal.