http://www.sdbj.com/...D=33548133.1496524.1322373.6012558.9255839.352
(zwei Tage alt - vom 19.06.06)
Carlsbad Tech Firm Signs IP Licensing Pacts With Sony, Nikon
‘150 Companies Infringing on Our Patent Rights,’ Says Chief Executive
By MIKE ALLEN
San Diego Business Journal Staff
A year after settling a longtime dispute over ownership of patents, Patriot Scientific Corp. has struck new licensing agreements with Sony Corp. and Nikon Corp., two of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers.
The agreements were announced June 12 for Nikon and June 2 for Sony. The company has also signed licensing agreements with HP, Intel Corp. and Fujitsu within the past six months.
The Carlsbad-based firm shares intellectual property, or IP, rights for micro-processing technology found in a wide array of electronics systems with TPL Group of Cupertino, a privately held company that “commercializes IP patents.”
Patriot contended that it was the sole owner of 10 patents it purchased from Charles Moore, one of the technology’s co-inventors, and was locked in a court battle over the patents until it settled with TPL in June 2005.
The technology covers techniques used in designing microprocessors and microcontrollers, and permits computers and other data processing equipment to communicate.
Expanding Phenomenon
The publicly held Patriot Scientific is part of an expanding phenomenon of companies or individuals filing suits or pursuing settlements on technology patents in recent years, with lawyers engaged in the process referred to a “patent trolls.”
The company also continues to develop microprocessor and other complementary technologies, and provides this to major manufacturers.
David Pohl, the chairman and chief executive, wouldn’t reveal fees paid by the two Japanese companies, only that the amounts were in “the millions of dollars.”
Last year, the two struck a $3 million licensing arrangement with Santa Clara-based AMD, one of the world’s largest chipmakers.
Pohl said previous agreements had to be revealed because these revenues were a major departure from Patriot’s former business as a developer of new technology. Today, it’s a licensor of the patented technology and shares fees equally with partner TPL.
Shareholders aren’t complaining. Earlier this year, after Patriot signed licensing agreements with several electronics manufacturers, it used $25 million generated from those agreements to issue two dividend payments, the first for 2 cents per share, the second for 4 cents.
The share price, 12 cents about a year ago, shot up above $2 on Bulletin Board trading in March, but has since come back down. Last week, shares were trading around $1, giving it a market cap of $376 million.
Microcap companies rarely pay dividends. But Pohl said the board decided to show where the company was headed and to reward shareholders.
Doug Olson, an attorney with San Diego law firm Paul Hastings, said while there’s been a lot of negative publicity surrounding the field, “There is going to be legitimate, small individual inventors who come up with good ideas and they should be rewarded for the value of their contributions.”
Olson, who represents large and small companies on both sides of patent disputes, said the courts have been finding in favor of the plaintiffs.
“I’d say the patent trolls are way ahead in terms of the money they’ve received versus the money they’ve put out in research and litigation,” he said.
One of the largest patent infringement settlements occurred in March when Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry e-mail device, agreed to pay NTP, a Virginia firm, $612.5 million for the technology NTP claimed was theirs.
For its third quarter ended Feb. 28, Patriot Scientific reported net income of $24.8 million on revenue of $60.3 million, compared with last year when it had net income of $659,000 on revenue of $2.9 million.
For the nine months, Patriot reported net earnings of $28 million on revenue of $70.3 million, compared with a net loss of $1.5 million on sales of $2.9 million for the year-ago period.
Since moving to Carlsbad from Rancho Bernardo, Patriot increased its staff to six and its board to five to reflect the increased licensing agreement activity.
Pohl declined to forecast future licensing agreements, but said he would continue to set his sights on agreements with the largest manufacturers in the electronics industry. He said 150 companies have been notified they are violating patent rights infringement, and are being contacted about agreements.
“The entire electronics market is using this technology in all sorts of electronic devices that use microprocessors, and often, these devices have more than one microprocessor,” Pohl said.
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