ExaNet announced today that it has filed a Statement of Defense in the Tel-Aviv District Court in response to a lawsuit by the nSof company (now Digital Appliance Storage Systems), alleging that ExaNet is employing nSof's know-how and technology. ExaNet, a startup company dealing in advanced storage solutions, claims that nSof is misusing the judicial process in an attempt to illicitly gain ExaNet's intellectual property through damaging ExaNet's work and goodwill by a baseless lawsuit.
Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle, the world’s second largest software company, controls nSof.
ExaNet proposed to nSof to submit both the ExaNet and nSof technologies to a neutral expert, who would determine whether there was indeed "theft" involved, or ulterior motives for filing the lawsuit by the other party – nSof declined.
ExaNet moreover intends to file a counter-suit for damages present and future due to this baseless lawsuit that is based merely on a newspaper story and odds and ends of circumstantial evidence.
ExaNet's filing argues that no evidence has been produced of any "commercial secret" or other intellectual property allegedly infringed or stolen. The newspaper story describes a technology that is not unique but common to a number of companies developing modern data storage systems. nSof's technology as described by nSof in its lawsuit, is not unique to nSof, and is in fact in the public domain. ExaNet sought the opinion of a world-known expert on this matter and has the report in its possession.
Furthermore, Attorney Eli Zohar of M. Seligman & Co., a law firm that specializes in corporate litigation, argues in his response that it is hard to believe that a company specializing in data storage can be sued by another company operating in the same field and be forced to disclose its technology, based merely on a newspaper story, describing publicly available information. ExaNet will ask the court to order nSof to provide evidence of its intellectual property that it alleges was infringed, since it suspects that otherwise, nSof may take advantage of the technology that ExaNet was forced to reveal in court, to improve and develop its own technology.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on May 23, 2001.