Symbol Technologies et alia vs. Lemelson
Are you violating a patent by using bar codes? According to the Lemelson Foundation, you are. And it could mean an expensive fee.
By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 9/1/1999
Seven automatic data capture (ADC) companies have jointly filed a suit in federal court against the Lemelson Medical, Educational, & Research Foundation, Limited Partnership. The companies are seeking a declaration that certain patents asserted by the Lemelson Part-nership against end users of bar code equipment are invalid, unenforceable, and not infringed.The seven ADC companies are Accu-Sort Sys-tems, Inc., Inter-mec Technologies Corp., Metrologic Instruments, Inc., PSC Inc., Symbol Technologies, Inc., Teklogix Corp., and Zebra Technologies Corp.
No claim is now or has ever been asserted by the Lemelson Partnership directly against any of the ADC companies. Instead the Lemelson Partnership has contacted many of the ADC companies' customers demanding a one-time license fee for certain so-called "bar code" patents transferred to the Lemelson Partnership by the late Jerome H. Lemelson. The ADC companies have received numerous requests from end-users asking that they undertake the defense of these claims using their knowledge of the technology at issue.
This is not the first time the Lemelson Foundation has been brought to court. In October 1998, Cognex Corp. filed suit against the Lemelson Foundation on the same principle. Cognex is a manufacturer of machine vision systems. For several years hundreds of worldwide customers of Cognex were faced with assertions of infringement by Lemelson because of their use of machine vision systems in manufacturing operations.
The seven ADC companies have received support from AIM, Inc., the global trade association for the ADC industry. "AIM applauds what the industry has done to support its customers," says Larry Roberts, CEO of AIM. "We fully support the very proactive action these companies have taken."
There are no other articles related to this article.Talkback
Related Content
Related Content
Sponsored Links
View All Blogs
