Sun filed patent infringement charges on March 26th in another lawsuit against Network Appliance (NetApp) with claims that the storage vendor's newly acquired Onaro SANscreen and NAS Insight storage management software violates Sun's patents for device discovery, remote monitoring, event filtering and remote rebuilding of computer, noted court papers filed in U.S. District Court for Northern California as reported by Paul McDougall with InformationWeek.

NetApp acquired Onaro this past January along with its NAS Insight and SANscreen software, the latter of which was deployed in 32 percent of Fortune 50 companies at the time of the acquisition and allows enterprises to manage large amounts of storage with a minimum of downtime, eWeek reports.

Sun's latest lawsuit claims that SANscreen infringes upon its intellectual property, ostensibly because the Onaro storage management suite has since been upgraded with NetApp IP. Onaro NAS Insight, a network storage monitoring software, was named as a second product infringing upon Sun patents.

This latest filing between the two companies is the first since December when Sun requested a change in venue for the patent litigation to be moved from an East Texas courtroom to a California one, which was granted.

NetApp's original suit filed in early September alleges Sun's Zettabyte File System (ZFS) infringes on seven NetApp patents since it is essentially a reimplementation of its WAFL (Write Anywhere File Layout) file system.

In October, Sun countersued requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of NetApp's filer products from the marketplace along with monetary damages. Sun also has been re-examining NetApp's original license for Network File System, which Sun developed in 1984.

Speaking to eWeek, Sun spokesperson Dana Lengkeek said the U.S. Patent Office has granted Sun's "re-examination request with respect to NetApp's [5,819,292] patent [for WAFL]." A re-examination is granted when the patent office determines that a substantial new question about the patentability of innovation exists, Lengkeek said.

"Sun is confident in our patents and claims against NetApp and pleased with the direction of this case," Lengkeek said.

"NetApp initiated this attack against Sun's ZFS file sharing system, and now as NetApp attempts to extend its product line, it also expands its exposure to Sun patents," Lengkeek told eWeek. "Sun is committed to protecting its innovations and the open source community against the lawsuit that NetApp questionably initiated against ZFS.

The Sun-NetApp case is expected to be heard sometime this summer. [...read more...]

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