In PNY Technologies Inc. v. SanDisk Corp., Northern District of California Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers held that the plaintiff failed to properly allege anticompetitive effect, but permitted PNY to amend its complaint.
The case involves allegations than SanDisk used the threat of patent litigation to force potential licensees to enter anticompetitive licensing agreements. The court faulted the complaint for failing to allege improper monopolization because SanDisk’s dominant position was supported by patents. And to the extent that the license may have exceeded the scope of those patents, PNY failed to show anticompetitive effect. For example, the plaintiff alleged that a “grant-back” provision requiring a licensee to cross-license SanDisk to use the licensees new technological innovations reduced licensees’ incentives to innovate, but not that it actually restrained innovation.