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Intermec, Symbol Come to Terms on RFID
Article courtesy of Frontline RFID
Sept. 6, 2005 -- A potentially troublesome RFID patent dispute came to a somewhat surprising end this week when Intermec Technologies Corp. and Symbol Technologies Inc. reached an agreement to settle their RFID intellectual property litigation. Symbol has also joined Intermec's Rapid Start Licensing Program.
Intermec will file for dismissal of its RFID lawsuit in the Delaware district court. Additional patent litigation involving other technologies has been put on hold while the two companies work toward a resolution.
In June 2004, Intermec filed a patent infringement suit against Matrics Corp., now Symbol Technologies, related to Intermec's RFID patents. Under the terms of the settlement agreement between the two companies, Symbol has joined Intermec's Rapid Start RFID intellectual property licensing program. In turn, Symbol is providing Intermec access to its RFID intellectual property through the cross-licensing provisions of the Rapid Start program.
Symbol is also part of a group of vendors that announced an RFID intellectual property licensing consortium last month. Intermec is not currently part of that group, but the company announced its own simplified Rapid Start licensing program in the spring. Several major vendors signed up for the limited-time offer, which ended in August.
The two companies filed a series of lawsuits against each other after RFID cross-licensing talks broke down. Intermec claims Symbol has violated several of its mobile computing and wireless communications patents; Symbol claims Intermec is violating its bar code scanning patents, and in fact cancelled a scan engine supplier agreement.
In August, the U.S. International Trade Commission voted to investigate allegations that Symbol violated U.S. trade practices by importing mobile computers and other equipment that infringe on Intermec's patents.
According to a statement from Intermec, "Both companies believe this agreement is a fair compromise of the issues related to RFID and that subsequent efforts to reach resolution of all legal disputes is in the best interests of shareholders and customers and will encourage accelerated adoption of RFID and automated data collection technologies within the industry.