Seagate sues STEC for patent violations with the side benefit of stalling the other 50+ makers of solid-state storage who eat into HDD sales.

Contested patents cover "surface mount stacking method and device," "hardware assisted memory backup system and method," and "method and system for host programmable data storage device self-testing."

"We have spent $7 billion over the last 10 years to optimize how our disks work," says Seagate CEO William Watkins. "This is the first lawsuit brought by a hard-disk company against a solid-state company. We are protecting the entire industry."

STEC believes it held prior patents, dating more than a decade prior to Seagate's patents. The $190 million-STEC was once known as SimpleTech before it sold off its consumer division with that name.

Go Sue ‘Em