Sybase 365 Sued for Infringing Two Messaging Patents

TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) says that it has filed a lawsuit against Sybase 365 over claimed infringements of two patents. One lawsuit alleges infringement of United States Patents Nos. 6,891,811 and 7,355,990 issued in 2005 and 2008, respectively, on technology for permitting two-way communication of short messages between a Short Message Service Center (SMSC) or wireless device and an internet (or HTTP) device or Universal Resource Locator (URL).

The second lawsuit alleges infringement of United States Patent No. 7,430,425, a patent that covers the routing of inter-carrier messages that a message sender addresses by using only the recipient's telephone number. This patent is related to United States Patent No. 6,985,748, which was asserted against Sybase 365 (then known as Mobile 365) in a prior lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. After a favorable jury verdict in that lawsuit, a final judgment was entered by the district court on March 31, 2009 finding, among other things, the '748 patent to be valid and infringed, and awarding $12 million in damages and a 12% royalty going forward. This new lawsuit alleges infringement by Sybase 365 platforms that route both short and multi-media messages among carriers using only a phone number.

"TCS was founded on technological innovation and invention and continues to apply its capital to investments in research and development of wireless technology," said Drew Morin, Chief Technology Officer of TCS. He added, "We always prefer to enable access to our technology without resorting to litigation. Our MO-to-HTTP patent portfolio licensing program is an example of our ability to create affordable access to our patented inventions. However, our investment in innovation demands that we protect our proprietary technologies, and actively defend our intellectual property rights from infringement. With the continued infringement of our patents by Sybase 365, we had no choice but to enforce our investors' rights through litigation."

TCS has retained the law firm of Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, a Chicago-based law firm that specializes in intellectual property litigation and trials, to prosecute the cases.

Posted to the site on 2nd August 2009