Court ruling triggers plunge in Ashton-Tate stock; 25% downturn occurs after judge scraps dBase copyright.Court ruling triggers plunge in Ashton-Tate stock 25% downturn occurs after judge scraps dBASE copyright Ashton-Tate Corp. stock fell more than 25 percent in value during the week following a Dec. 13 court ruling invalidating copyrights on its flagship dBASE product. Sales of the database software line potentially could be crippled by the decision of federal Judge Terrence Hatter, allowing the public to copy it freely. The latest edition of dBASE carries a suggested retail price of $795 a copy. On Dec. 19 the company announced it was served with a class-action lawsuit seeking to recover unspecified damages relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc customers paying too much for its licensed products. On Dec. 20 the company asked Hatter to reconsider, and it has said it will appeal to a higher court if he refuses. The proprietary software line, which allows computer users to store and retrieve vast amounts of data, had historically brought in about 60 percent of the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. company's revenues. The decline from $8 a share to $5.75 from Dec. 13 to Dec. 20 came despite company attempts to shore up its stock. Four days after the decision, Ashton-Tate issued a public statement saying it will resume its previously announced stock repurchase Stock repurchase A firm's repurchase of outstanding shares of its common stock. program. The program had ended after the firm bought back 1.7 million of the 3 million shares authorized Shares authorized The maximum number of shares of stock of a company allowed in the articles of incorporation, which may be changed only by a shareholder vote. See: Issued and outstanding. shares authorized See authorized capital stock. for repurchase by company directors. The news comes at a poor time for the $265 million (1989 revenues) company. Having reported five successive quarterly losses totaling more than $50 million, it posted a $1.1 million profit this fall. Nine-month returns, however, showed a loss of $12.5 million; revenues of $166 million were down from $203 million for 1989's first nine months. "We were extremely surprised by the ruling," Chief Executive William Lyons
Sir William Lyons (1901-1985) was, with fellow motorcycle enthusiast William Walmsley, the co-founder in 1922 of the Swallow Sidecar Company, maker of motorcycle sidecars, and which became Jaguar told UPI UPI abbr. United Press International . "We are confident that our copyrights are valid. There was no intent to mislead anyone." Judge Hatter said Ashton-Tate purposely concealed dBASE's origins, which were an older database program developed by Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratories “JPL” redirects here. For other uses, see JPL (disambiguation). Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a NASA research center located in the cities of Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge, near Los Angeles, California, USA. . Ironically, Ashton-Tate was suing one of its competitors, Fox Software Inc. of Ohio, when the effort boomeranged. Another competitor, WordTech Systems, said Ashton-Tate's loss would spur development of complementary products from other software developers. But some observers doubted a summary judgment was merited. "When you have allegations of inequitable conduct In United States patent law, patent holders must go to the federal courts to enforce their patent rights. Even if the patent is valid and infringed, these courts may exercise their equitable discretion not to enforce the patent if the patentee has engaged in inequitable conduct. , or fraud, you have a factual issue" requiring trial, said Los Angeles patent attorney Stuart Lubitz. The dBASE line is "a very, very valuable property right," said Lubitz. |
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