Patent battles continue to rage across the wireless enterprise industry, as Visto Corp. joins the fray with separate lawsuits against rival wireless e-mail companies Infowave Software and Seven Networks Inc.
The nation’s courts have already engaged several such lawsuits from similar players, with Research In Motion Ltd., Pumatech Inc., Good Technologies Inc. and others embroiled in patent litigation. Analysts have cited the sluggish economy as the main driver for most of the legal squabbles, as companies look to shore up their businesses and protect their patents while hoping to bleed their competitors with costly litigation.
Indeed, Visto is fresh off a massive $50 million funding round. Visto Chief Executive Officer Brian Bogosian told RCR Wireless News in June that the company would use its funding in part to pay for potential legal battles.
Visto filed its lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The company alleges Infowave is violating its patent No. 5,961,590, which relates to the system and method for synchronizing e-mail. Visto claims Seven is violating two Visto patents, Nos. 6,085,192 and 6,023,708, which describe systems and methods for securely synchronizing multiple copies of a workspace element in a network, and the use of a global translator to synchronize workspace elements across a network.
“Visto has spent seven years and nearly $100 million researching, developing and patenting technologies that are key to the secure synchronization of data within networks, and which are vital to Visto’s industry-leading solutions for data mobility,” Visto’s Bogosian said. “We believe that Infowave and Seven have built significant portions of their businesses on unauthorized use of our patents, with absolutely no patents of their own. Visto has the resources and the will to see that all illegal uses of our technologies are stopped.”
Infowave and Seven issued press releases following the news, both claiming to have not yet viewed the lawsuits and proclaiming their innocence.
“Seven can only infer from the lack of communication that this action is part of a campaign by Visto to unjustly claim proprietary rights to real innovation and open standards,” Seven said. “Seven hopes that the wireless community will follow our lead, focus on creating products to benefit customers and not engage in frivolous litigation.”
Visto, Seven and Infowave all offer wireless e-mail and corporate information access products.
In related news, Infowave announced it acquired all of the intellectual property assets of Sproqit Technologies Inc., which offered a mobile application platform for users to access wireless e-mail and other information.
Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Infowave will acquire all of the intellectual property of Sproqit and in consideration will issue to Sproqit more than 4 million common shares of Infowave.
“By combining the innovative solution of Sproqit with Infowave’s suite of wireless e-mail and data solutions, we further expand our value proposition to network operator, OEM and enterprise customers,” said Sal Visca, Infowave’s chief technical officer. “Leveraging the intellectual property and strong development team of Sproqit, Infowave will accelerate our product development in order to further capitalize on our market opportunity.”
The acquisition is just the latest in a string of such deals in the wireless enterprise market.
