WD told it has a week to pay massive $500 million patent infringement fine

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(Image credit: Shutterstock / Freedomz)

Western Digital was ordered to pay $316 million back in October 2024 over patent infringement
A further $237 million has now been added in interest
WD set to split its SSD and HDD businesses

Western Digital (WD) has been given just seven days to cough up $553 million in a patent infringement case.

The hefty penalty comes as a California jury found WD guilty in October 2024 of infringing data encryption patents owned by SPEX Technologies – at that time, the fine was a smaller $316 million to cover damages.

A further $237 million in interest was added by District Judge James Selna last month, bringing the total to $553 million.

WD must pay $550 million within seven days

The San Jose data storage company had requested a delay in payment pending further court decisions, but Judge Selna expressed concerns WD could use a restructuring move to alter how much it would need to pay, therefore demanding that the company settles up in just one week.

“The Court has concerns about potential corporate restructuring, particularly given the fact the Judgment is against only Western Digital Technologies, Inc.,” said Selna.

This could be indicative of Western Digital’s pending split, whereby its NAND flash storage business would go off under the Sandisk brand and its hard drive operations would remain under WD branding. The company expects completion of the demerger to happen in one week, on February 21.

SPEX said that it wasn’t sure “which new company will be responsible for satisfying the judgment or whether it will be split between the new companies, or whether the new company (or companies) would be sufficiently capitalized to cover the judgment.”

California-based SPEX also noted that WD has another storage patent infringement lawsuit relating to Germany’s MR Technologie.

Back then, Western Digital attorney Douglas Lumish of Latham & Watkins stated (via Reuters): “MRT's lawyers have given false credit, to a fairly magnificent extent, to Dr. Suess for the work of thousands of [Western Digital] engineers over decades and across the planet.”

TechRadar Pro has asked Western Digital for a comment on the SPEX patent infringement lawsuit, but we did not receive an immediate response.

Via The Register

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