Network-1 Announces Settlement of Patent Litigation With Transition Networks

Network-1 Security Solutions, Inc. announced today that it agreed to settle its patent litigation against Transition Networks, Inc. ("Transition") pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, for infringement of Network-1's Remote Power Patent.   Transition was one of 16 defendants defendants named in the litigation.

The settlement

As part of the settlement, Transition entered into a settlement agreement and a non-exclusive license agreement for the Remote Power Patent.  Pursuant to this agreement the terms of the license, Transition will license the Remote Power Patent for its full term which expires in March 2020, and pay a license initiation fee and pay quarterly royalties based on its sales of Power over Ethernet products, including those PoE products which comply with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers 802.3af and 802.3at Standards.

In September 2011, the Company initiated patent litigation against 16 data networking equipment manufacturers in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, for infringement of its Remote Power Patent.  Named as defendants in the lawsuit, excluding related parties, were Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc., Allied Telesis, Inc., Avaya Inc., AXIS Communications Inc., Dell, Inc., GarrettCom, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Huawei Technologies USA, Juniper Networks, Inx., Motorola Solutions, Inc., NEC Corporation, Polycom Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., ShoreTel, Inc., Sony Electronics, Inc., and Transitions Networks, Inc.  Network-1 seeks monetary damages based upon reasonable royalties. 

The Remote Power Patent relates to

The Remote Power Patent relates to, among other things, delivering power over Ethernet cables to remotely power network connected devices including, among others, wireless switches, wireless access points, RFID card readers, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephones and network cameras.  In June 2003, the IEEE approved the 802.3af PoE Standard, which led to the rapid adoption of PoE.  The IEEE as well approved the 802.3at Power over Ethernet Plus Standard, which increased the maximum power delivered to network devices to 40-60 watts from the current 15 watts in accordance with the 802.3af Standard.

ABOUT NETWORK-1 SECURITY SOLUTIONS, INC.Network-1 Security Solutions, Inc. is engaged in the acquisition, development, licensing and protection of its intellectual property and proprietary technologies. It currently owns six patents covering various telecommunications and data networking technologies and is currently focusing its licensing efforts on its Remote Power Patent covering the remote delivery of power over Ethernet networks.  The Remote Power Patent was granted by the U.S. Office of Patents and Trademarks on April 21, 2001 and expires on March 11, 2020.  Just in case, Network-1 seeks to acquire additional intellectual property assets and enter into strategic relationships with third parties to monetize their intellectual property assets.