USPTO Issues Reexamination Certificate For Netlist Seminal LRDIMM Patent

IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Netlist, Inc. (NASDAQ: NLST), today announced the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued an Inter Partes Reexamination Certificate for U.S. Patent No. 7,532,537, marking the final milestone of the years-long reexamination brought by Inphi. The '537 patent covers the fundamental concept of load reduction, a technology integral to the high performance memory module market, a market forecasted to be $37 billion¹ through 2021.

The '537 patent is one of a number of Netlist patents to have survived post-grant review proceedings.  Netlist prevailed in multiple Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs) brought by SanDisk and Smart Modular against U.S. Patent No. 8,516,185, covering the distributed buffer architecture adopted by the industry for DDR4 LRDIMM, as well as U.S. Patent Nos. 8,301,833 and 8,516,187 related to clocking and buffering techniques that are critical to the design of hybrid memory modules such as NVDIMM and Storage Class Memory. Netlist has also been successful in defending U.S. Patent Nos. 8,001,434 and 8,359,501 against IPRs brought by SanDisk and Smart Modular, with 15 total claims being validated related to self-test technologies widely used in LRDIMMs, SSDs, and Storage Class Memory. The decisions in the self-test IPRs are currently on appeal before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.

"We are very pleased to have received this hard-won certificate for the reexamination of our seminal '537 patent," said Netlist's Chief Executive Officer, C.K. Hong. "We believe the success we have had in defending our intellectual property in the USPTO and the federal courts underscores the strength of our patent portfolio, particularly in the area of high performance DIMMs, and provides us with a solid platform from which to license our technology."

About Netlist, Inc.
Netlist creates solutions that accelerate turning raw data into business insight. The company produces next generation persistent memory solutions that enable businesses to transact quicker, gain insight faster and reduce datacenter cost. Flagship products NVvault® and EXPRESSvault® accelerate system performance and provide mission critical fault tolerance.  HybriDIMM™, Netlist's next-generation Storage Class Memory, lowers cost and improves performance of big data analytics and in-memory computing. The company holds a portfolio of patents, many seminal, in the area of hybrid memory, storage class memory, rank multiplication and load-reduction, among others. Netlist is part of the Russell Microcap® Index.  To learn more, visit www.netlist.com.

Safe Harbor Statement:
This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future performance of Netlist. A forward-looking statement is neither a prediction nor a guarantee of future events or circumstances and is based on currently available market, operating, financial and competitive information and assumptions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or projected, including, among others, risks associated with the launch and commercial success of our products, programs and technologies; the success of product, joint development and licensing partnerships; continuing development, qualification and volume production of HybriDIMM™ , as well as our other products and technologies; the rapidly-changing nature of technology in our industry; risks associated with intellectual property, including patent infringement litigation against us as well as the costs and unpredictability of litigation over infringement of our intellectual property; volatility in the pricing of DRAM ICs and NAND flash; changes in and uncertainty of customer acceptance of, and demand for, our existing products and products under development, including predictions about the size of the market for our products; delays in our and our customers' product releases and development; introductions of new products by competitors; changes in end-user demand for technology solutions; and general economic and market conditions. Other risks and uncertainties are described in our annual report on Form 10-K filed on March 4, 2016, and subsequent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission we make from time to time. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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SOURCE Netlist, Inc.

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