Western Digital owes $315.7 million for infringing data security patent, US jury says

By Blake Brittain

-Data storage provider Western Digital must pay $315.7 million in damages for violating a patent owner's rights in data security technology, a jury in California federal court said on Friday.

The jury determined that several Western Digital self-encrypting hard drive products infringe a SPEX Technologies patent covering data encryption innovations, a SPEX attorney said in an email.

San Jose, California-based SPEX sued Western Digital in 2016. SPEX said it bought the patent at issue from Spyrus, a cryptography company that developed the technology for encrypting sensitive communications.

Spyrus co-founder Sue Pontius said she was grateful to the jury for the verdict. SPEX's lead attorney, Marc Fenster, said the verdict was "a vindication of Sue Pontius and her perseverance."

A Western Digital spokesperson said the company disagrees with the verdict and plans to challenge it in post-trial motions and an appeal if necessary.

The lawsuit said Western Digital data storage devices including its Ultrastar, My Book and My Passport products infringed the patent. Western Digital denied the allegations.

In July, a different jury in the same Santa Ana, California, court said Western Digital owed more than $262 million to another company for infringing patents related to increasing hard drive storage capacity.

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Jamie Freed and Richard Chang)