By Blake Brittain
-Data storage provider West Digital (NASDAQ:) must pay $315.7 million in damages for violating a patent holder’s rights in data security technology, a jury in California federal court said Friday.
The jury has found that several Western Digital self-encrypting hard drives infringe on a SPEX Technologies patent that covers innovations in data encryption, a SPEX attorney said in an email.
San Jose, California-based SPEX sued Western Digital in 2016. SPEX said it had purchased the patent in question from Spyrus, a cryptography company that developed the technology for encrypting sensitive communications.
Spyrus co-founder Sue Pontius said she was grateful to the jury for the verdict. SPEX’s lead attorney, Marc Fenster, said the verdict was “a vindication for Sue Pontius and her perseverance.”
A spokesperson for Western Digital said the company disagrees with the verdict and plans to challenge it in post-trial motions and appeal if necessary.
The lawsuit stated that Western Digital’s data storage devices, including its Ultrastar, My Book and My Passport products, infringed the patent. Western Digital denied the allegations.
In July, another jury in the same court in Santa Ana, California, said Western Digital owed another company more than $262 million for infringing patents related to increasing the storage capacity of hard drives.
