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Technology Stocks : PALM - The rebirth of Palm Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KevRupert who wrote (4257)	3/16/2001 7:39:31 PM
From: KevRupert	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6784

Palm, Handspring Sued (3/16/01 Specifics) NCR claims handheld devices violate a patent. March 16, 2001 Amy Collins NCR (NCR, info), known mainly for its ATM banking technology, has filed suit against Palm (PALM, info) and Handspring (HAND, info), claiming the companies' industry-leading personal digital assistant devices infringe on a 13-year-old patent. The suit comes as the market for smart handheld devices starts to boom, according to a report from Boston-based research firm IDC. It predicts $26 billion in worldwide demand for the devices with sales climbing to 63.4 million units by 2004 from 12.9 million in 2000. "NCR allocates considerable resources to the research and development of its products and business solutions. We will aggressively assert our legal rights to protect our patent portfolio," said John Hourigan, NCR's director of corporate media relations said. He declined to comment further due to the pending litigation. Palm licenses its operating system to Handspring, a company founded by Palm's original creators. The companies lead the market, thus far outselling products based on Microsoft's (MSFT, info) Pocket PC platform. NCR did not say why Microsoft was excluded from the patent suit, but a page on NCR's Website is devoted to describing the company's partnership with Microsoft, listing a number of endeavors it plans to jointly develop. Neither Palm nor Handspring officials were available to comment on the suit. In its January quarterly report filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Palm notes that it is already facing other suits over the development of the operating system. Among the suits is one from Xerox (XRX, info) filed in 1997 that claims infringement of its handwriting recognition patent. There is also a 1999 suit from Telxon Corporation and Penright! Corporation claiming that the Palm operating system contains graphical user interface software copied from the plaintiffs' software. In its quarterly report filed with the SEC in February, Handspring said that since it has licensed Palm's operating system through September 2003, it could be harmed by any of a number of the lawsuits against Palm. NCR filed its suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Delaware.