Townshend Intellectual Property LLC claims legal victory over ADI in modem suit

IP firm claims legal victory over ADI in modem suit
By Silicon Strategies
December 3, 2003 (3:07 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20031203S0006

MENLO PARK, Calif.--Townshend Intellectual Property L.L.C. is claiming victory in a patent infringement suit filed against Analog Devices Inc. over 56-kilobit-per-second modem technology.

Though financial terms have not been disclosed, Analog Devices will pay Townshend a lump-sum settlement amount in addition to royalty fees for future use of the technology in accordance with Townshend's published licensing terms, according to the Menlo Park-based intellectual-property (IP) house.

Townshend, whose inventions are the foundation for 56-Kbps modems, was issued a U.S. patent for the technology in 1998. In 2002, Townshend filed suit against four modem manufacturers: Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Analog Devices, and Agere Systems Inc. These cases were consolidated for pretrial purposes, along with a previously pending case against ESS Technology Inc.

Companies issued a license from Townshend now include 3Com Corporation, Conexant Systems, In c., Lucent Technologies, Inc., UTStarcom, Inc., IBM, Motorola, Inc., PCTEL, Inc., and Analog Devices, Inc.