Dot Hill Systems Corp. filed suit against Crossroads Systems, Inc. for patent infringement in United States District Court in Denver, Colorado.

The asserted patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,277,995, Storage controller and method for performing host access control in the host interface adapter, covers access control technology for storage systems and is asserted against Crossroads’ StrongBox storage solution.

Dot Hill innovation has resulted in numerous patent awards on its technologies, and the patent asserted against Crossroads is part of Dot Hill’s 100-plus patent portfolio. Dot Hill’s IP, demonstrated by its patent portfolio, stands on three pillars of innovation which, when combined, provide a complete platform for addressing customers’ storage needs. Dot Hill’s pillars of innovation include storage firmware, hardware platforms, and systems, which combine to create advanced SAN solutions.

“Dot Hill recognizes that building world class products takes a serious investment in engineering and intellectual property-and we are committed to defending our intellectual property rights against infringement,” said Dana Kammersgard, Dot Hill president and CEO. “We are proud to count many creative technologists in our engineering teams who have developed a range of patented inventions covering numerous aspects of our product offerings, from the core firmware, to the storage controllers, to the data management software that makes our solutions work. These inventions developed by our engineers deserve protection from unauthorized use.”

In September 2013, Crossroads filed suit against Dot Hill in Austin, TX, claiming infringement of U.S. Patent 6,425,035, Storage router and method for providing virtual local storage, and breach of contract.

Crossroads also sued Oracle, Cisco Systems, Huawei Technologies, Tandberg Data, NetApp, and Quantum for patent infringement.

Dot Hill recently won a stay of the Texas litigation pending the completion of two inter partes review proceedings before the United States Patent Office, which challenge the validity of the ‘035 patent.

Final written decisions on the validity of Crossroads’ ‘035 patent will issue from the United States Patent Office in early 2016.