NTP Incorporated, the company founded by Tom
Campana, the inventor of wireless email, yesterday filed lawsuits
against Apple, Inc., Google Inc., HTC Corp., LG Electronics Inc.,
Microsoft Corporation, and Motorola, Inc. in the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
for infringing NTP's eight patents related to the delivery of
electronic mail over wireless communications systems.
NTP, previously settled with Research in Motion
(RIM), maker of BlackBerry wireless devices. In that litigation, all
the claims asserted at trial were found to be valid and willfully
infringed by RIM, and the verdict was ultimately affirmed on appeal by
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Donald
E. Stout, NTP's co-founder, said, "Use of NTP's intellectual
property without a license is just plain unfair to NTP and its
licensees. Unfortunately, litigation is our only means of ensuring the
inventor of the fundamental technology on which wireless email is based,
Tom Campana, and NTP shareholders are
recognized, and are fairly and reasonably compensated for their
innovative work and investment. We took the necessary action to protect
our intellectual property."
Spurred by that
litigation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) moved to
re-examine NTP's patents. In December 2009,
in spite of the massive effort by the USPTO to overturn NTP's patents,
the USPTO Board of Patent Appeals (USPTO Board) ruled that 67 of NTP's
patent claims in four patents are valid, including three claims that RIM
was found to have infringed. Infringement of a single claim is all
that is needed for a patent to be deemed violated.
NTP has also filed an
appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to overturn
the USPTO's remaining rejections of NTP's patent claims.
"The filing of suit
today is necessary to ensure that those companies who are infringing
NTP's patents will be required to pay a licensing fee," Mr. Stout
continued. "In view of the USPTO Board's ruling, the debate over
whether Mr. Campana was an originator in the field of wireless email is
over. No patents in U.S. history have received as much scrutiny as
NTP's patents. We are delighted that the USPTO Board has recognized the
groundbreaking innovation of Mr. Campana by confirming 67 of NTP's
patent claims. We are also confident that the USPTO's rejections, which
are on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,
will be overturned."