Sun Microsystems has recently been served court papers in a trial in which NetApp accuses the owner of the Solaris operating system of 7 patent infringements.

The suit was filed on September 5 and, according to Dave Hitz, Network Appliance founder and executive vice president, it has two parts: one in which the court is asked to decide whether NetApp infringed Sun’s patents (called “declaratory judgment”), and one in which NetApp claims Sun’s ZFS technology infringes patents pertaining to the former.

It appears that NetApp’s move is a consequence of Sun’s “aggressive” strategy to force Network Appliances to pay royalties for using technology crafted at Sun. Sun approached NetApp about 18 months ago with claims the storage maker was violating its patents and seeking a licensing agreement, NetApp Chief Executive Dan Warmenhoven said in a statement.  

“Sun's aggressive demand that we license some of their IP caused us to examine carefully whether we were infringing their IP rights and whether they might be infringing ours. NetApp now believes that Sun’s ZFS technology infringes a number of NetApp patents. NetApp believes Sun unfairly distributes ZFS technology to third parties to induce the adoption and distribution of the infringing technology in their products without informing them of applicable NetApp patents,” NetApp explained in a press release.

NetApp is a network storage and data management company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It is a member of the NASDAQ-100 and ranks on the Fortune 1000. The company employs about 6,600 people worldwide. In 2007 the company ranked 6th on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For.

The dispute started with Sun’s lawyers first, but apparently in the recent period those lawyers stopped responding to NetApp’s “friendly” demands, leaving the company with no choice but to sue Sun in order to obtain the invalidation of the latter’s claims, or, in other words, “to remove any doubts.”

Moreover, according to the press statement, Network Appliances ignited a counter-offensive against its “attacker”, “seeking compensatory damages and a permanent injunction against Sun to prevent further distribution of the NetApp patented technology in current or future versions of Sun’s data processing systems and related software, including their ZFS technology.”

“With respect to Sun’s patent claims, our lawsuit explains that we do not infringe, and – in fact – that they are not even valid. As a result, we don’t think we should be paying Sun millions of dollars,” Hitz added.

“We firmly believe that everyone is best served by fair and responsible treatment of intellectual property. What concerns us is that through its distribution of ZFS under its own terms and conditions, Sun is unfairly encouraging others to adopt and distribute the infringing technology without informing them of our applicable patents.”

“NetApp is an innovation leader in the design of data storage systems,” said Dan Warmenhoven, Chief Executive Officer, Network Appliance. “We have an obligation to protect the technologies in our award winning solutions that have and continue to benefit our customers. IP disputes are unfortunate and I don’t want either company to be distracted by litigation, but we must have clarity. It’s time to restore fair play for users of both company’s technologies.”

Dave Hitz added that he is “painfully aware” of the consequences of this intellectual property-related suit, which might be perceived as a swan’s song for a company (an allusion to the recently ended spat between Novell and SCO), but underlined that his company is doing well in all areas and that this well-being aspect should comfort even the most skeptical investors or analysts.

“The sooner we determine the true status of ZFS, the better it will be for everyone,” he added.

However, NetApp’s approach to the suit is not at all meant at destroying Sun Microsystems or its clients who benefit from ZFS’ abilities. Dave Hitz pledged his company’s support for all Sun’s products, in order not “to leave a bunch of customers in the lurch.” 

Sun’s official response, coming from Jonathan Schwartz himself under the form of a blog post, accused NetApp of attacking the entire open source community with its lawsuit, not just the Java-language promoter.

“First, Sun did not approach NetApps about licensing any of Sun's patents and never filed complaints against NetApps or demanded anything. […]We're all focused on innovation and winning customers, not litigation,” Schwartz said.

He concluded: “The rise of the open source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson.”