Toshiba Files Suit for Infringement of its Essential DVD Patents in Federal District Court

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) announced today that on May 14, 2009, Toshiba filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin against Imation Corp. (“Imation”), several manufacturers and several distributors of recordable DVD media, as a means to prohibit infringement of Toshiba’s DVD patents. Toshiba’s complaint seeks damages for past infringement and requests that the court enjoin the sale, manufacture, and importation into the United States of recordable DVD media by the defendant companies named in the complaint. The infringing recordable DVD media is sold in the United States under at least the Imation® and Memorex® brand names.

Toshiba licenses patents essential for meeting DVD format specifications.⁽¹⁾ Imation and the other defendant companies named in the complaint do not have license agreements with Toshiba or the DVD6C Licensing Group⁽²⁾ covering recordable DVD media, and have engaged in the importation and sale of recordable DVD media without permission. The infringement of Toshiba’s patents by these companies, has negatively affected Toshiba’s business, and also caused damage to the legitimate and licensed DVD product manufacturing and distribution business as a whole. Through the filing of the lawsuit, Toshiba seeks to recover monetary damages, prevent future infringement, and/or secure agreements to respect Toshiba’s intellectual property rights in the future.

⁽¹⁾ DVD format specifications are standards which were adopted by the DVD Forum.

⁽²⁾ The DVD6C Licensing Group (DVD6C) is an industry body representing nine leading developers of DVD technology and formats that licenses essential DVD patents. For further information on the DVD6C Licensing Group, please see http://www.dvd6cla.com/.

Lawsuit for the infringement of Toshiba’s DVD patents

1. Date of filing: May 14, 2009

2. Filed with: United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin

3. Plaintiff: Toshiba Corporation

4. Filed against: Imation Corp. (U.S.A.), Moser Baer India Limited (India), CMC Magnetics Corporation (Taiwan), Ritek Corporation (Taiwan), Glyphics Media, Inc.(U.S.A.), Hotan Corporation (U.S.A.), Khypermedia Corporation (U.S.A.) and Advanced Media, Inc (U.S.A.)

5. Products: Recordable DVD media of the formats DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL, and DVD-RAM

6. Scope of Complaint: Seeks monetary damages and seeks an injunction to prohibit production, import, sales or other disposal or use of the named products in the United States.