Imation to fork out $11m in patent suit

IronKey flash drive patent was at stake

A jury has found that flash-flinger Imation must pay $11m damages to ioengine for patent infringement.

The US patent in question is number 8,539,047 (the ’047 Patent entitled Apparatus, method and system for a tunnelling client access point). A company called ioengine, which owns the patent, involving secure USB devices, had alleged that Imation had wilfully infringed the IP in its IronKey products, which have on-board storage and processing capabilities.

The Delaware court jury found the infringement took place but was accidental, not wilful, and awarded ioengine the $11m.

The technology described in the ’047 patent was invented by Scott McNulty, who founded ioengine. The company described its technology like this:

IOENGINE provides portable devices and their users with a secure and user friendly system to manage a multitude of applications and services including the following; advertising, biometric verification, blockchain management, data mining, data storage, digital currency, downloads, e-commerce, education, gaming, IoT, log-in technology, messaging, mobile payments, printing, registration, remote access, search, streaming, sync, telecommunications controls, transportation controls, VR/AR networking and more.

The patent case was filed by ioengine in December 2014. Imation denied any wrongdoing or infringement.

Imation sold its IronKey business to Kingston in February 2016. It originally bought the IronKey product line in September 2011. , Glassbridge Enterprises Inc is an investment management company and all that is left of Imation after it sold off all its consumer and enterprise storage businesses, including Nexsan. ®

The case is IOENGINE LLC v. Imation Corp, Delaware court, case no. 1:14-cv-01572