Forgent Networks sues an additional 11 companies for patent infringement.Forgent Networks (Nasdaq:FORG FORG Forge (street type) FORG Forgings ) announced recently that its wholly owned subsidiary Wholly Owned Subsidiary A subsidiary whose parent company owns 100% of its common stock. Notes: In other words, the parent company owns the company outright and there are no minority owners. , Compression Labs, Inc., has initiated litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. against 11 companies for infringement of United States Patent No. 4,698,672 (the '672 Patent) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is the Federal district court with jurisdiction over the eastern part of Texas and is a part of the Fifth Circuit. The court's headquarters are in Tyler, Texas and has five subdivision offices. , Marshall Division. The defendants are: Acer America Corporation, AudioVox Corporation (Nasdaq:VOXX), BancTec, Inc., BenQ America Corporation, Color Dreams, Inc. (d/b/a StarDot Technologies), Google Inc., ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq:SSFT SSFT Secure Socket File Transfer ), Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW SUNW Sun Microsystems, Inc (former stock symbol; now JAVA) SUNW Stanford University Network Workstation (Sun Microsystems, Inc) ), TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq:TIVO), Veo Inc., Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO YHOO Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ symbol) ). In April 2004, Compression Labs initiated litigation against 31 companies for infringement of the '672 Patent in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. In July 2004, 24 of these same defendants sued Forgent and Compression Labs in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware seeking declaratory relief of non-infringement, invalidity and unenforceability of the '672 Patent. "Forgent intends to vigorously pursue and defend the pending litigations," said Richard Snyder, chairman and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Forgent. "We are committed to the intellectual property program and our objective remains to protect our intellectual property assets from infringement." Since the company's inception, Forgent has designed and developed strategies to help find new and better ways to solve problems. As these solutions were found, the company patented and then sought to commercialize these innovative technologies. This effort has created a diverse portfolio of intellectual property such as data compression, video mail, videoconferencing, video call scheduling, and many others. The company's patent portfolio includes the combined invention of Compression Labs, Inc., VTEL Corporation, and Forgent Networks, Inc. Over the last two years the intellectual property business has generated approximately $90 million from licensing the '672 Patent to over 30 different companies in Asia, Europe and the United States. The '672 Patent relates to digital image compression, and fields of use include any digital still image device used to compress, store, manipulate, print or transmit digital still images such as digital cameras. However, the '672 Patent extends beyond digital cameras and includes many digital still image devices such as personal digital assistants, cellular telephones, printers, scanners, and other devices used to compress, store, manipulate, print or transmit digital still images. Forgent has the exclusive right to license and enforce all the claims under the '672 Patent in all fields of use involving digital still image compression. |
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