Archive Sues a Competitor Over Patents : Litigation: Financially ailing company says Rexon and two subsidiaries infringed technology used in two of its tape drives.

Archive Corp., a financially struggling company that makes tape drives used to back up data stored in computers, has sued a competitor for allegedly infringing three of its patents.

Archive sued Rexon Inc. of Manhattan Beach and two of its subsidiaries, Wangtek of Simi Valley and Tecmar of Cleveland, for allegedly infringing patented technology used in Archive’s 5 1/4-inch tape drives and 3 1/2-inch mini-cartridge tape drives.

Robert Miller, general counsel for Rexon, declined to comment.

The lawsuit, filed Aug. 30 in federal court in Los Angeles, is the first patent litigation initiated by Archive since it acquired Cipher Data Products Inc. in San Diego for $141.7 million in April, 1990.

That acquisition ended a bitter legal fight between Cipher and Archive over a set of tape drive patents owned by Cipher.

Several months after acquiring Cipher, Archive began pursuing patent claims against some competitors that it claimed were infringing Cipher patents for tape drive products.

One of the patents related to the Rexon suit was issued to Archive, but two were acquired with the Cipher unit, said Gene Valet, a lawyer for Archive.

An Archive competitor, Sankyo Seiki in Torrance, agreed in October, 1990, to pay royalties to Archive in exchange for a license to use technology patented by Cipher.

In 1988, Cipher won a lawsuit against Wangtek that involved an unrelated set of patents. As of a year ago, the suit had cost Wangtek more than $12.5 million in royalties.

Hurt by merger-related expenses and the recession, Archive has laid off more than 600 employees since October, including 150 employees last week. For the third quarter ended June 30, the company reported a loss of $50.3 million.