Vancouver, Canada: March 12, 2014 – Absolute® Software Corporation (TSX: ABT), the industry standard for persistent endpoint security and management solutions for computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones, today announced it has received a favorable court ruling in patent litigation against World Computer Security Corp. and Front Door Software Corp. The court construed the disputed terms favorably to Absolute Software’s position.
In February 2014, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas (Austin Division) issued a ruling that interpreted the claims of Absolute’s United States patents 6,244,758 and 6,300,863. These patents cover different aspects of an agent in an electronic device that transmits location information, such as one or more global communication links, to a remote host. As detailed in the patents, the agent may be programmed to operate automatically, silently and without visual signals, and may also evade detection.
In an attempt to bolster their non-infringement theories, World Computer Security Corp. and Front Door Software Corp. placed particular emphasis on certain terms. First, they sought to limit "one or more of the global network communication links” to the specific “traceroute” functionality, which is only one of many different embodiments described in Absolute’s patents. Similarly, they demanded that the “agent” be always stealthy, which represents only a subset of many different embodiments described in the patents. The Court rejected their proposed constructions. The Court has ordered the parties to meet and confer to attempt to settle the case.
“We are pleased by the court’s ruling and we remain committed to protecting – and when necessary – taking action to enforce our patent and intellectual property rights,” said Errol Olsen, Interim CEO at Absolute Software. “We have invested significant resources to design and market our unique endpoint technology, so it’s imperative that we assert our rights whenever we are challenged.”
Absolute Software currently holds 43 patents within the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Russia, with 118 pending patent applications.