On November 18, 2010, the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a press release announcing that it voted to institute an investigation of Certain Data Storage Products and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-748).

The investigation is based on an October 20, 2010 complaint and a November 10, 2010 supplement to the complaint filed by Data Network Storage, LLC of Newport Beach, California alleging violation of Section 337 in the importation into the U.S. and sale of certain data storage products and components thereof that infringe U.S. Patent No. 6,098,128.  See our October 25, 2010 post for more details.

According to the Notice of Investigation, the ITC has identified the following entities as respondents in this investigation:

• NetApp, Inc. of Sunnyvale, California


• Dell, Inc. of Round Rock, Texas


• Xyratex, Ltd. of Fremont, California


• Xyratex International Inc. of West Sacramento, California


• Xyratex (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd of Malaysia


• Dot Hill Systems Corp. of Longmont, Colorado


• International Business Machines Corporation of Armonk, New York


• Cisco Systems, Inc. of San Jose, California


• QNAP Systems, Inc. of Pomona, California

Additionally, Jeffrey T. Hsu of the Office of Unfair Import Investigations is identified in the Notice of Investigation as the Investigative Attorney assigned to handle this investigation.

Lastly, Chief ALJ Paul J. Luckern issued a notice indicating that ALJ Carl C. Charneski will be the presiding Administrative Law Judge in this investigation.