MONSEY, NY, January 27, 1998 - Motorola Inc. has been named in a patent infringement suit by General Patent Corporation (GPC). The suit seeks to enforce four of GPC's patents, which cover specific aspects of PC Card modems, the PCMCIA credit-card-size modems used in notebook and laptop personal computers.
The suit was filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego. The patents that are alleged to be infringed are U.S. Patent No. 4,603,320 ("Connector Interface"), U.S. Patent No. 4,543,450 ("Integrated Connector and Modem"), U.S. Patent No. 4,686,506 ("Multiple Connector Interface"), and U.S. Patent No. 4,972,470 ("Programmable Connector").
"Motorola was notified of the infringement in 1995," said Alexander Poltorak, Ph.D., GPC's chairman and CEO. "We did all we could to avoid litigation."
Dr. Poltorak said that last year GPC also filed a patent infringement suit against IBM and U.S. Robotics Corp. (now 3Com) and a separate suit against seven modem manufacturers including Hayes. IBM and two other companies have since settled the lawsuit. Several others have agreed in principle to license GPC's patents as well.
GPC is represented in this case by a legal team led by Alan Smith and Christopher Marchese of the law firm of Fish & Richardson P.C. Mr. Marchese noted that other companies have been notified of the infringement.