Teknowledge Responds to Microsoft's Business Tactics.Business Editors PALO ALTO Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 5, 2004 Teknowledge Corporation (Nasdaq:TEKC), a leading provider of software and services to transform business data into value, today announced that it will respond appropriately and strongly to Microsoft's counterclaims in Teknowledge's ongoing patent 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. regarding Teknowledge's HotBox hot·box n. An axle or journal box, as on a railway car, that has become overheated by excessive friction. Noun 1. hotbox - a journal bearing (as of a railroad car) that has overheated (R) patent (US Patent No. 6,029,175). Teknowledge filed a patent infringement patent infringement n. the manufacture and/or use of an invention or improvement for which someone else owns a patent issued by the government, without obtaining permission of the owner of the patent by contract, license or waiver. lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation (company) Microsoft Corporation - The biggest supplier of operating systems and other software for IBM PC compatibles. Software products include MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, Microsoft Access, LAN Manager, MS Client, SQL Server, Open Data Base Connectivity (ODBC), MS Mail, (Nasdaq:MSFT MSFT Microsoft (stock symbol) MSFT Movimento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore (Italy) MSFT Multi-Stage Fitness Test MSFT Master of Science in Family Therapy MSFT Macalester Students for Fair Trade ) on July 16, 2003. The claims asserted in this complaint concern the alert and notification features of Teknowledge's HotBox patent, which can be utilized to deliver alerts to users concerning changes to web pages or availability of software updates. Prior to the lawsuit, Teknowledge sent notification of the potential infringement to Microsoft, and gave it an opportunity to respond. Teknowledge also offered to license the patent to Microsoft prior to the lawsuit. Microsoft filed a counterclaim A claim by a defendant opposing the claim of the plaintiff and seeking some relief from the plaintiff for the defendant. A counterclaim contains assertions that the defendant could have made by starting a lawsuit if the plaintiff had not already begun the action. on February 3, 2004, claiming that Teknowledge infringed on two of its patents, one for electronic bill payments, and the other for information aggregation. Microsoft did not notify Teknowledge of any potential infringement of these patents, and did not offer to license them to Teknowledge, a company over 10,000 times smaller than Microsoft. Neil Jacobstein, President 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 Teknowledge, commented: "We are disappointed with Microsoft's business tactics. If Microsoft really thought that our patent claims were without merit, they should have waited until the Markman hearing A Markman hearing is a pre-trial hearing in the United States court system during which a judge hears testimony from both parties on the appropriate meanings of the relevant key words used in the claims of a patent, the infringement of which is alleged by the plaintiff. scheduled for June, to give both companies the benefit of a third party assessment of Teknowledge's patent claim construction. Instead, they filed two infringement actions against Teknowledge, without attempting notification or initiating a process for licensing their patent claims. Given the considerable size differential between the two companies, it is difficult to believe that Microsoft filed against Teknowledge in order to recover licensing revenues." Jacobstein continued: "Possibly Microsoft wanted to send a message that small companies shouldn't dare sue Microsoft. Based on our preliminary analysis, we believe Microsoft's patent counterclaims to be utterly without merit. In any event, Microsoft could have opened a dialog with us to explain why they think we infringe on their patents. They may have underestimated Teknowledge's willingness to pursue its case, in spite of these tactics. We are looking forward to the upcoming Markman hearing, and to Teknowledge having its day in court." About Teknowledge Corporation Teknowledge is the leading provider of on-premise financial account aggregation Account aggregation is a method that involves compiling information from different accounts, which may include bank accounts, credit card accounts, investment accounts, and other consumer or business accounts, into a single place. software worldwide, and a prime contractor for defense R&D in network security, Web-based training, distributed systems Distributed systems (computers) A distributed system consists of a collection of autonomous computers linked by a computer network and equipped with distributed system software. , and knowledge processing. Founded in 1981, Teknowledge holds an extensive intellectual property portfolio, including nine software patents. Teknowledge's TekPortal(R) software is used as the account aggregation infrastructure at some of the largest online banks in the world, including Wells Fargo in the United States and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in Japan; the largest bank service provider in the U.S., Fiserv; and the largest Internet-only independent bank in the United States, NetBank. More information about Teknowledge may be found at www.teknowledge.com. Forward looking statement: Except for the historical information, the matters discussed in this news release may contain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, factors relating to future sales. These forward-looking statements may involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may vary significantly based on a number of factors, including, but not limited to, uncertainties in product demand, the impact of competitive products and pricing, changing economic conditions around the world, release and sales of new products and other risk factors detailed in the Company's most recent annual report and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. |
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