In November 2000, a US appeals court ruled on the controversial
patent, limiting its scope to an extent. The ruling meant that
sales of digital products downloaded only to PC hard drives are not
covered by the patent. However, where digital products are
downloaded, streamed or copied onto compact discs, paper or other
storage media in homes and offices, it is possible that the patent
will apply.
The New York-based company yesterday announced that it is filing
the first of many anticipated patent infringement lawsuits against
an as-yet-unnamed company in a Wisconsin court. In a statement,
E-data’s president, Tibor T Tallos, said:
"While the initial filing is against one
company, E-data plans to add more companies over the course of the
next few weeks. During the past few months E-data has sent notice
of infringement letters to over one hundred companies, including
some of the biggest companies on the internet. While E-data
management is talking about settlements and licensing with some of
these companies, others are at risk of being added to this lawsuit,
or to additional lawsuits we are planning."
This is the first lawsuit filed by E-data in over six years.
Tallos said that this reflects “a new determination by the company
to aggressively enforce our patent.”
The company says it is carefully selecting company targets to
sue based on their location and the market segments they represent.
It hopes to obtain judgments “that would impact negotiations with
other companies in [the same] market segment.”
The Freeny Patent is entitled: "System for Reproducing
Information in Material Objects at a Point of Sale Location." It
describes a system and method of distributing content over
electronic and wireless networks. The company says that it holds
the Freeny Patent in both North America and Europe.
