Seagate Faces Whistleblower's Accusations In Convolve Case

An ex-employee at Seagate Technology has accused the company of destroying evidence that could have played a key role in the long-running patent infringement case filed against it by a small company called Convolve Inc.

The former engineer at the company, named Paul A. Galloway, has come up with what is referred to as "an eye-witness account" claiming that Seagate had gleaned the hard drive technology from Convolve, the New York Times reported.

According to the documents submitted with a federal court in Manhattan, Seagate has incorporated the proprietary hard drive technology into its own line of products.

Galloway further claimed that Seagate, one of the four majors in the computer hard drives segment, has tinkered with the evidence related to the decade-long patent infringement case filed by Convolve and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology against the company.

The accusations are explained in an affidavit filed by Convolve’s attorney as an attempt to reopen the case to incorporate the fresh testimony from Galloway.

The two companies have entered into a non disclosure agreement (NDA), under which Seagate wasn’t supposed to use various handy technologies it learned from Convolve in its own products.

The recent court filing reads: "According to Mr Galloway, Seagate widely disseminated Convolve's technology throughout Seagate's servo engineering community, but engineers like Mr Galloway, who were exposed to Convolve's technology, were not told that it was protected under an NDA".