Quantum is suing Riverbed Technology for patent infringement over its use of data de-duplication technology, just months after a similar dispute with Data Domain.
The suit, filed last month in the US District Court in the Northern District of California, alleges that Riverbed infringed on US Patent 5990810, "Method for partitioning a block of data into subblocks and for storing and communicating such subblocks," which was granted to RockSoft in 1999. RockSoft was subsequently acquired by ADIC, a company that was acquired by Quantum in 2006.
Quantum's lawsuit against Riverbed seeks an injunction from further infringement, damages and attorney's fees.
The lawsuit echoes a dispute Quantum had earlier this year with Data Domain, a data de-duplication vendor. As a result of that dispute, Quantum and Data Domain signed a cross-licensing agreement and Quantum received 390,000 shares of Data Domain stock. The two companies also signed a deal to not pursue additional lawsuits.
Quantum's de-duplication technology employs either in-line or post-processing capability. The manner in which de-duplication occurs has been a matter of hot debate in the last year. Data Domain uses in-line processing.