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Technology Stocks : DSC Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kech who wrote (3485)	1/27/1998 4:57:00 PM
From: Paul Lee	Respond to of 4429

an interesting read--they do try to protect their rights PETALUMA, Calif., Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Advanced Fibre Communications(R), Inc. (Nasdaq: AFCI), announced today that Catherine Millet joined the Company in December 1997 as its new Vice President of Product Planning. Ms. Millet brings to AFC her 23 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Most recently, Ms. Millet was an executive with DSC Communications and, prior to that, was with Alcatel and Raynet. In her position with AFC, Ms. Millet will be responsible for AFC's product planning and marketing programs. AFC also announced that it has filed a preemptive lawsuit against DSC Communications seeking declaratory judgement that Ms. Millet's hiring was not improper. This lawsuit was filed by AFC in response to certain communications received from DSC Communications threatening to take legal action against AFC and Ms. Millet to prevent her from joining AFC. The lawsuit was filed on December 22, 1997 in Superior Court in Sonoma County, California. In response to AFC's lawsuit, on January 22, 1998, DSC Communications filed a lawsuit against AFC and Ms. Millet in the Eastern District of Texas seeking a temporary restraining order that, if granted, would prevent Ms. Millet from working at AFC. DSC alleges in the lawsuit that Ms. Millet's joining AFC will cause the inevitable disclosure of DSC trade secrets. In the lawsuit, DSC also alleges that certain of AFC's technology infringes a patent held by DSC. AFC stated that it believes that DSC's lawsuit is without merit, and AFC intends to defend the lawsuit vigorously. AFC believes that the lawsuit by DSC improperly attempts to prevent Ms. Millet from assuming her position with AFC by claiming that she will inevitably disclose certain DSC trade secrets to AFC. AFC also stated that, although it is currently evaluating the patent infringement claim, on the basis of its review to date, that claim also appears to be without merit. AFC stated that it believes that the patent infringement claim is being utilized improperly by DSC as a legal maneuver to attempt to resolve any issues in this matter in the Texas courts rather than in California. AFC believes that California is the proper venue for this matter for a variety of reasons, including that AFC is headquartered in California, Ms. Millet has been and is a California-based employee, and the offer of employment was made and accepted in California. Carl Grivner, AFC's President and CEO, commented, "We are extremely pleased that Catherine has joined AFC and believe that she will be a valuable member of the AFC team. Having someone of Catherine's caliber will contribute substantially to the efforts to achieve our goals in the important global market for access equipment. "We at AFC do not believe that the lawsuit by DSC has any merit," continued Grivner, "and that this sort of action by DSC attempts to establish an impediment to an employee's decision to change employers." AFC believes that the right of an employee to change employers is explicitly upheld by the California Business and Professions Code. "We intend to vigorously contest these claims by DSC," said Grivner. AFC is a leading manufacturer of telecommunications systems for the "local loop" between telephone service users and public telephone networks worldwide. AFC has pioneered a single platform that supports any network, any transport, and any service. AFC's flagship product, the UMC 1000(R) 3rd generation digital loop carrier (3GDLC)(TM) provides any service from POTS to xDSL over copper, fiber, HDSL, coax and radio transport media.