Court Relief in DEC Suit : Emulex Freed to Resume Work on Enjoined Items

Emulex Corp. of Costa Mesa said Wednesday that it has won temporary relief from an injunction that had prohibited it from developing certain new products.

The injunction had been ordered as part of ongoing patent infringement and unfair business practice suits filed against Emulex by arch-competitor Digital Equipment Corp. of Maynard, Mass.

Steve Frankel, Emulex’s president, said the stay--obtained in a federal appeals court--allows the computer equipment company to resume work on new products that had been interrupted when it was forced to comply with a U.S. District Court order forbidding development of products that used certain Digital technology or involved work by certain former Digital employees now at Emulex.

The stay is in effect only until further hearings on the suits filed by Digital.

The legal battle between the two companies began in July, 1985, when Digital, a mini-computer maker, filed two suits against Emulex. The suits claimed that Emulex had infringed on Digital’s patents and obtained access to its trade secrets by hiring Digital’s former engineering director.

In April, Digital won an injunction ordering Emulex to stop developing and selling certain products that can be used with Digital’s computers. Emulex appealed the injunction to a federal appellate court and won.

Michael Lewis, Emulex’s chief financial officer, said that although 70% of Emulex’s product line is designed to work with Digital computers, the legal battles with Digital affect only the Costa Mesa company’s potential future products, not any currently in production.