back to article Storage giant EMC, rival upstart Pure Storage trade new charges

Play hard? We’ll show you playing hard. First EMC sued flash storage upstart Pure Storage for alleged improper staff recruitment and use of EMC proprietary data (PDF), charges which Pure denied. Even as the startup has hit back with some serious allegations of its own, EMC lobbed another sueball at Pure the very same day, …

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  1. M Debelic

    unlawful testing

    I am curious to learn what "unlawfully testing a machine" consists of??

    1. Platypus

      Re: unlawful testing

      Destructive testing can be forbidden by a lease/loan contract, as can merely opening the case. Reverse engineering can be forbidden by a purchase contract as well, as can resale to a specific third party (or at all). If a front company acquired a unit, they might well have violated their contract with Pure by allowing EMC to put that unit through the wringer. I'm not saying that's what happened, but "unlawful testing" isn't as absurd as it sounds.

  2. M Debelic

    I'd be curious to learn which law prohibits testing of competitors equipment.

    Reverse engineering too (if there is no patent or copyright infringment).

    If Pure has any patents, pull them out.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unlawfully testing ....hmmm

    Maybe that's their patent?

    Method of covering IP infringements by making customers sign NDA's relating to having a peek under the cover of the product they just bought.

    And that $150 million in the bank to protect their IP .... as far as I know EMC spends more than $200 million each month on R&D, 20 patents just last month according to http://www.patentgenius.com/assignee/EMCCorporation.html

    I work in the datacentre of a large company and they always buy kit from well known large companies. Not because of performance, not because of price, but because of the support.

    1. M Debelic

      Re: Unlawfully testing ....hmmm

      The law defines quite clearly how a patent is filed, granted and enforced. An NDA is not one of them.

      I read on another source that Pure might be trying to accuse EMC of a breach of the licensing agreement. If so, what would be the sanction in that case?

      It appears EMC bought the array through a middleman, hence its unclear how EMC would be liable for that.

      As a I wrote above, I would be curious to learn details what Pure is holding EMC accountable for.

      It might be just an attempt at filing a countersuit in order to settle the dispute out of court.

  4. Terry P

    ==

    It's not usually front companies these are obtained through - quite often these units are obtained by plain old buy-backs.

    I've seen these happen within weeks of a purchase - another vendor comes along and swaps out the competitor units (even brand new) as part of a much larger deal and to prevent any foot print from remaining.

    These then go to brokerage but if it's a unit they have not seen it will go into some deep, dark lab for testing.

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