SanDisk has got so hacked off at LSI's claims of patent infringement and threatening letters to SanDisk's customers that it's suing the company for trade libel.

In its suit, filed last Friday in Northern District of California's US District Court, NAND flash and digital music player supplier SanDisk says LSI Corporation claimed in September 2007 that SanDisk's digital media players infringed its patents and needed licences for the intellectual property (IP) at issue. SanDisk said they didn't.

This happened three times, following which LSI sent letters to a quarter of SanDisk's main customers reiterating the claims, under a heading that read: "RE: Unlicensed SanDisk Products." That sounds pretty threatening.

SanDisk reckons these letters amount to trade libel. It wants a legally enforceable statement from the court that it is not infringing any LSI patents, orders to stop LSI continuing the libel, damages for the harm to its reputation, and costs.

LSI provides silicon, systems and software for the storage and networking markets. It could have gone to court to enforce its patents but chose the letter route. Now it's headed for court anyway. Neither LSI nor SanDisk has issued any statement about the action. ®

Related stories

• LSI pimps out 7900 array (29 September 2009)
• Coming soon - LSI: Filer (4 September 2009)
• LSI releases bigger, better Engenio array (25 August 2009)
• LSI buys struggling ONStor (23 July 2009)
• Seagate's SSD may be a bit late (2 July 2009)
• Apple SD Cards fuel (more) Mac tablet chatter (30 June 2009)
• SanDisk and Samsung end flash row (29 May 2009)
• SanDisk shows off multi-level cell make-over (11 February 2009)
• CES Sales show SanDisk's SD-not-CD player a hit with punters (9 January 2009)
• SanDisk flashes notebook flash (8 January 2009)
• SanDisk's Netbook flash uncovered (8 January 2009)
• CES SanDisk intros push-button backup... USB Flash stick (7 January 2009)
• CES SanDisk tunes into SlotRadio (7 January 2009)
• SanDisk's faster netbook flash (6 January 2009)
• Review 2GB MP3 player head-to-head (6 January 2009)
• LSI Agere merger creates storage, networking and CE chip giant (7 December 2006)
• Intel exec quits to run LSI Logic (24 May 2005)