Judge Lets Utah Software Engineer Expand Lawsuit

By Bob Mims, The Salt Lake Tribune

Jan. 3–A Utah software engineer has registered an important procedural victory in his long-running patents battle with some of the world’s leading computer makers.

U.S. Magistrate Judge David Nuffer has granted Phillip Adams’ motion to expand his patent infringement allegations against Dell Inc., Fujitsu Computer Systems, MPC Computers and Sony Electronics. Initially, Adams claimed the defendants had violated his rights in three instances; the case now involves five counts.

Adams’ patents relate to his fix for a floppy disk controller that destroyed data during file transfers from a hard disk to the floppy drive.

The defect, which affected millions of personal computers and laptops in 1990s, led Toshiba to pay $2.1 billion to settle a class action suit that claimed the company knowingly sold faulty computers.

Attorneys for the computer companies had argued against Adams’ adding the additional charges, contending that would “dramatically expand the size and scope of this case.” The defendants also argued that Adams lacked “any factual support” for his “extraordinary request.”

Nuffer allowed that Adams had not explained why the additional counts came 18 months after he originally filed his suit.

“However, the court has a strong interest in seeing that the claims between these parties . . . are resolved sensibly,” the magistrate wrote. “It makes little sense to handle part of the parties’ dispute and then require a second suit to resolve the rest.”

Courts were closed Tuesday due to the National Day of Mourning for former President Gerald Ford. Efforts to reach Adams for comment were unsuccessful.

On another motion, Nuffer granted the companies’ bid to include half a dozen third-party computer parts suppliers as part of their defense strategy. Adams had opposed the move as an unwarranted expansion of his lawsuit beyond his intent.

Nuffer agreed the potential for expanding the case was “exponential,” but assured Adams he would tightly manage the scope of the litigation.

In October, Adams reached confidential settlements with IBM and Lenovo Inc., two of the six companies he had named in his original May 2 suit.

Last April, Gateway reached a similar settlement after six years of legal wrangling with Adams and his company, Adams & Associates.

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