On August 28, 2009, the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a press release announcing that it voted to institute an investigation of Certain Flash Memory and Products Containing Same (Inv. No. 337-TA-685).

The investigation is based on a July 31, 2009 complaint filed by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”) of South Korea.  As we explained in our August 3 post, the complaint alleges violation of Section 337 in the in the importation into the U.S. and sale of certain flash memory and products containing the same, which allegedly infringe Samsung’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,930,050 and 5,740,065.

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

• Spansion, Inc. of Sunnyvale, California


• Spansion LLC of Sunnyvale, California


• Spansion Japan Ltd. of Japan


• Alpine Electronics, Inc. of Japan


• Alpine Electronics of America, Inc. of Torrance, California


• D-Link Corp. of Taiwan


• D-Link Systems, Inc. of Fountain View, California


• Slacker, Inc. of San Diego, California


• Synology Inc. of Taiwan


• Synology North America Corp. of Redmond, Washington


• Shenzhen Egreat Co., Ltd. of China


• Appro International, Inc. of Milipitas, California

In addition, the Notice of Investigation identifies Rett Snotherly of the Office of Unfair Import Investigations as the Investigative Attorney assigned to handle this investigation.