Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. and Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P. Settle Patent Lawsuit and Enter into License Agreement.

LOS ANGELES -- Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. ("Con Edison"), a subsidiary of one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies, headquartered in New York, and Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P., headquartered in Los Angeles, announced today the settlement of patent litigation between the parties. As part of the settlement, Con Edison has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum for a nonexclusive license under a comprehensive portfolio of patents that Katz owns relating to interactive voice applications.

The nonexclusive license covers services offered by Con Edison in the "Energy and Utility Services" Field of Use, including customer service provided via automated systems and live agents. Other terms of the license were not disclosed.

The patents held by Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P. cover a wide range of interactive technology including automated forms of: customer service, prescription refill services, securities trading, merchandising, prepaid services, telephone conferences, registration, home shopping, as well as functions involved in securing information from databases by telephone, interactive cable transactions, and various other uses of toll free and local numbers.

"Con Edison provides its customers with toll free numbers which can be used 24 hours a day, seven days a week to report outages, get balance and payment information, and make payment arrangements. Our systems balance calls among our various centers and receive the phone number from which the caller has dialed, in order to quickly identify the caller and allow us to offer our customers the fastest, most efficient, interaction with our companies. The technologies in this portfolio of patents have facilitated some of the processes we use to offer our customers this service," said a Con Edison official familiar with the transaction.

Ronald A. Katz stated, "We welcome Con Edison to the large group of energy and utility companies who have purchased license rights under this portfolio."

There are over 200 companies with license rights under this portfolio, including over 25 energy and utility companies. Companies with license rights under this portfolio include: Advanta Corp., Alltel Corporation, American Century, American Express, Ameritrade Holding Corporation, Automatic Data Processing, Inc., AT&T Corp., Bank of America Corporation, BB&T Corporation, Capital One Services Inc., Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless, Certegy Inc., Dell Inc., Delta Air Lines, Inc., Edward D. Jones & Co., L.P., Equifax Inc., Excel Communications Inc., First Data Corporation, First National Bank of Omaha, First Tennessee National Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Home Shopping Network Inc., Household International, Inc., HSBC Bank USA, International Business Machines (IBM), KeyCorp, LaSalle Bank Corporation, MCI Inc., Mediacom Communications Corporation, Mellon Financial Corporation, Merck & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., Metris Companies Inc., Microsoft, MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc., Nationwide, OppenheimerFunds, Inc., People's Bank, The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group, Inc., Prudential Financial, Inc., QVC, Inc., Sears, Roebuck and Co., Shop At Home, Inc., Sprint Corporation, SouthTrust Bank, Sunoco, Inc., Synovus, The Gallup Organization, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., The Vanguard Group, Inc., Verizon California Inc. and its affiliates, Wachovia Corporation, and Wells Fargo & Company.

Mr. Katz is the named inventor on a large number of patents primarily in the fields of telecommunications and computing. He also formed Telecredit, Inc., the nation's first on-line real time credit and check cashing authorization system, and was awarded a patent as co-inventor of that technology.

Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE: ED], one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues and $27 billion in assets. The utility provides electric, gas and steam service to more than 3 million customers in New York City and Westchester County, New York. For additional financial, operations and customer service information, visit Con Edison's Web site at www.coned.com.