Patent Law

The following is excerpted from a GEOSPAN press release issued today, September 22, 2008, at Prudent Press Agency:

GEOSPAN Corporation announced today that its patent infringement lawsuit against Pictometry International Corporation of Rochester, NY remains ongoing and is on track for an early 2010 trial date (Civ. No. 08-816 ADM/JSM). The lawsuit, filed in March 2008 in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, alleges that Pictometry has infringed, and is continuing to infringe, GEOSPAN's U.S. Patent No. 5,633,946, which was issued in 1997 and is entitled, "Method and Apparatus for Collecting and Processing Visual and Spatial Position Information from a Moving Platform."

In its Complaint, GEOSPAN asks the court to award monetary damages for Pictometry's past infringement and an injunction to prevent any infringing activity going forward. The Complaint also sought a declaratory judgment that Pictometry's U.S. Patent No. 5,247,356 is not infringed by GEOSPAN, and that one or more claims of Pictometry's patent are invalid. While the declaratory judgment claims relating to Pictometry's patent were recently dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, that ruling has no effect on Geospan's infringement claims relating to its own patent, despite a recent public statement by Pictometry that may have suggested otherwise.

See the full press release here.