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The subject of the suit is STEC, a manufacturer of solid state drives for large businesses, which Seagate claims is violating four of its patents governing how drives communicate with computers and handle error correction and memory backup.

Seagate claims it has tried to open discussions with SSD manufacturers about licensing its patents but made no headway: "They have blatantly decided they don't have to," Seagate chief executive officer William Watkins tells the Wall Street Journal. "Now is the time to start enforcing our patents."

STEC counters that it was never contacted by Seagate and didn't hear anything about the lawsuit until proceedings were begun.

Seagate claimed last month that should the SSD market continue to grow it would look at enforcing patents it claimed were being violated.