March 14, 2002
Zi Claims Second Patent Victory Against Tegic Communications, a Unit of AOL Time Warner; Zi's Win Confirms that a Version of Tegic's Chinese Text Input Product Infringed Zi's Patent
CALGARY, ALBERTA--Zi Corporation (NASDAQ: ZICA) (TSE: ZIC), a leading provider of intelligent interface solutions, announced today that it has received an order from the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington granting Zi its second important patent victory against Tegic Communications, a unit of AOL Time Warner. Zi's patent victory comes less than three weeks after a separate legal decision by the District Court for Northern California, which granted Zi partial summary judgment stating that Zi's v.4.5 eZiText(R) product for alphabetic languages does not infringe Tegic's text input patents.
"The recent decision by the California court confirms that our eZiText v.4.5 English product does not infringe Tegic's patents, and enables us to enter the large North American market. This second decision by the Washington Court bolsters our proprietary competitive advantage against Tegic for our eZiText Chinese products" said Michael E. Lobsinger, Chairman and CEO of Zi Corporation. "These legal victories underscore our commitment to protect our intellectual property portfolio, instilling further confidence in our products with our customers."
In this latest summary judgment ruling, the Washington Court found in favor of Zi Corporation of Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of Zi Corporation, ruling that Tegic infringed Zi's patent by incorporating "trimmed databases" into its Chinese T9 text input software. Trimmed databases provide Zi with a strategic competitive advantage for its eZiText(R) predictive text input solution. The ability to use trimmed databases, which employ less memory in a device such as a cellular phone, is significant to device manufacturers in light of the increasing costs associated with memory and the limited memory available for text input applications on hand-held devices.
"Zi's leadership position in the Chinese text input market is closely tied to the efficiencies we are able to realize as a result of our patent," said Gary Kovacs, President of Zi Corporation "Zi's eZiText(R) solutions allow Original Equipment Manufacturers of hand-held devices to optimize their consumption of memory, enabling them to either reduce their costs or add features and functions for the end-user. In fact, we recently introduced eZiText Lite for the Chinese language to address demand for a reduced memory solution."
Zi did not seek damages in its motion for summary judgment as Tegic had removed trimmed databases from its Chinese T9 product after being informed of Zi's patent rights. A permanent injunction was not granted at this time as the Court found no immediate threat of repeat infringement. The Court ruled, however, that Zi could seek future injunctive relief if Tegic returns to its infringing behavior.
The Court has now ruled upon all remaining issues before it, concluding the legal proceedings and resolving Zi's case against Tegic in the District Court of Washington action.
A copy of the court orders can be viewed on Zi Corporation's website at www.zicorp.com.
Advantages of Trimmed Databases
For languages that use many characters, such as Chinese, memory usage for a text input solution must be kept to a minimum while maintaining the performance of the device. Zi's eZiText predictive text input solution, which uses the company's O'Dell patent, realizes substantial efficiency gains by reducing the area taken up in the device by the database. Manufacturers who do not follow the O'Dell method of data storage are either more restricted in the applications they can incorporate on a device because of the added consumption of memory, or must incur greater costs for adding memory capability. |
