PUMA News Should Help Stock this AM:
Press Release Source: Pumatech, Inc.
Pumatech Receives Favorable Ruling in Its Infringement Suit Against Extended Systems, Inc. (ESI)
Thursday January 22, 8:00 am ET
Court Denies ESI's Requests to Limit Damages
SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pumatech, Inc. (Nasdaq: PUMA - News), a leading provider of synchronization and mobilization software, yesterday received another favorable ruling regarding its patent infringement lawsuit against Extended Systems, Inc. (ESI). In the ruling, the Honorable D. Lowell Jensen of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, who will preside over the patent infringement trial, scheduled to begin on April 12, 2004, determined that both of ESI's damage-limiting motions would be denied.
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The first motion sought to preclude the trial testimony of Pumatech's patent damages expert, who will testify about Pumatech's claims for lost profits and a reasonable royalty rate for ESI to pay Pumatech for infringing sales. The Court ruled that the testimony is based on traditional and accepted damages calculations, and can be presented to the jury.
The second motion sought to prevent Pumatech from recovering monetary damages on Pumatech's allegations that ESI infringed Pumatech's trademarks and violated unfair competition laws. The Court denied this motion as well, ruling that those claims could go to the jury.
In addition, the Court denied Pumatech's motion for summary judgment on ESI's inequitable conduct defense, ruling that the state of mind of the inventors is a factual issue not appropriate for summary judgment. However, the Court stated that evidence on that defense would be presented only to the judge, and would not be heard by the jury because it is unrelated to the issues the jury must decide.
"We believe that these Court actions further solidify Pumatech's position in its case against ESI," said Chuck Runge, Pumatech's vice president of intellectual property. "We look forward to having this matter finally determined by the jury in April, and remain confident in our ability to prevail at trial."
ABOUT PUMATECH
Pumatech, Inc. provides organizations with a comprehensive suite of software products and services that synchronizes and distributes critical information throughout the enterprise. Organizations can choose to use Pumatech's ready-made enterprise offerings, or they can leverage Pumatech's professional services team to create custom solutions built upon Pumatech's core enterprise platform. Pumatech's customer and strategic partner base includes Global 2000 companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, America Online, Yahoo!, NTT DoCoMo, Eastman Kodak and IBM. The Company has headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in Amsterdam, Munich, Tokyo and London. Pumatech offers more information on its products and services at www.pumatech.com.
The forward-looking statements above in this news release, including but not limited to statements related to future hearings, Pumatech's ability to prove infringement, Pumatech's expectations as to the impact of the Court's ruling, and the potential outcome of patent litigation, are based on current expectations and beliefs, and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include uncertainties related to the outcome of the patent litigation, the ability of Pumatech to prove infringement, the possibility that even if infringement by ESI or others is established, Pumatech may not be entitled to injunctive relief or other damages, as well as additional risk factors, as discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of Pumatech's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended July 31, 2003 and Pumatech's quarterly reports filed from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Pumatech disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release.
NOTE: Pumatech and the Pumatech logo are trademarks of Pumatech, Inc., that may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other product and company names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Dave
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