FlashPath were a series of devices produced by SanDisk that allowed a variety of memory cards to be used in a 3.5" Floppy disk drive. The initial version introduced in May 1998 allowed SmartMedia

SmartMedia

SmartMedia is a flash memory card standard owned by Toshiba, with capacities ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB. SmartMedia memory cards are no longer manufactured.- History :...

 cards to be used with a floppy drive. Later, Memory Stick

Memory Stick

Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998, and is also used in general to describe the whole family of Memory Sticks...

 and Secure Digital

Secure Digital

Secure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...

/Multi Media Card versions were made as well. FlashPath adapters were sold both branded by SmartDisk, and as OEM

OEM

OEM means the original manufacturer of a component for a product, which may be resold by another company.OEM may also refer to:-Computing:* OEM font, or OEM-US, the original character set of the IBM PC, circa 1981...

 devices under other brand names.

FlashPath is hardware compatible with all standard 3.5" High-Density Floppy disk drives, but is not a drop-in replacement for real floppy disks. A special software device driver

Device driver

In computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....

 must be installed on the computer that is to access data via FlashPath. Thus, FlashPath is only usable with computers and operating systems for which such a driver exists and can be installed.

SmartDisk was sued by PC Connector Solutions, LLC over alleged U.S. patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 infringement by SmartDisk's Smarty and FlashPath products in 2000. However, the court ruled in favor of SmartDisk; a final ruling was made in 2005.

In 2007, SmartDisk sold its intellectual property assets to Verbatim

Verbatim Corporation

Verbatim Americas, LLC is a US company that markets storage media and flash memory products. It is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation of Japan and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.-History:...

, creating the patent holding company

Patent holding company

Patent holding companies are companies set up to administer, consolidate and license patents or otherwise enforce patent rights, such as through litigation...

 SMDK Corp. The holding company issued a new set of patent infringement

Patent infringement

Patent infringement is the commission of a prohibited act with respect to a patented invention without permission from the patent holder. Permission may typically be granted in the form of a license. The definition of patent infringement may vary by jurisdiction, but it typically includes using or...

lawsuits in 2008, some of which are still in process as of early 2010. However, since the product has become obsolete, most computer users are not affected by this lawsuit.

External links

• Review of using a FlashPath adapter for SmartMedia (October 1998/February 1999)