Court Finds MicroStrategy’s ‘Much More Sophisticated’ Products Do Not Literally Infringe Business Objects’ ‘Semantic Layer’ Patent
MCLEAN, Va., (January 07, 2005) –
MicroStrategy® Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR) a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence software, today announced that it has won a favorable court ruling in a lawsuit brought by Business Objects (Nasdaq: BOBJ) alleging that MicroStrategy infringed United States Patent No. 5,555,403, entitled “Relational Database Access System Using Semantically Dynamic Objects” (“the ‘403 patent”) owned by Business Objects.
In a unanimous opinion issued January 6, 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit substantially affirmed a 2003 summary judgment ruling of a federal district court in San Francisco that MicroStrategy did not infringe the ‘403 patent. The Federal Circuit is located in Washington, D.C., and is the appellate court that hears all patent cases in the United States.
According to the Federal Circuit, MicroStrategy’s products “use a much more sophisticated approach” for querying a relational database than what is disclosed in Business Object’s patent. The Federal Circuit ruled that the district court had correctly interpreted the patent, that MicroStrategy does not literally infringe any of the asserted patent claims, and that Business Objects is legally barred from claiming that MicroStrategy’s products infringe two of the three asserted claims under the doctrine of equivalents. A copy of the court’s decision in available at http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=mstr&script=400.
As a result of the Federal Circuit’s ruling, the case will be returned to the district court for further proceedings limited solely to Business Objects’ one remaining patent claim, and limited solely to the doctrine of equivalents. The Federal Circuit also reinstated all of MicroStrategy’s non-infringement and invalidity counterclaims brought against Business Object that the district court had not needed to address or decide.
MicroStrategy’s separate, affirmative lawsuit against Business Objects for patent infringement is expected to proceed to trial in federal court in Delaware in October 2005.
About MicroStrategy
Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a worldwide leader in the business intelligence software market. Leading Fortune 2000 companies are increasingly integrating MicroStrategy’s business monitoring, reporting, and analysis software into their operations. The MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform(TM) distills vast amounts of data into vital insight to help drive cost-efficiency, revenue-generation, and productivity. Top companies are using MicroStrategy to cost-effectively empower thousands of employees, partners, and suppliers with the business insight they need to make better business decisions everyday.
MicroStrategy has over 2,800 enterprise-class customers, including Aventis, eBay, General Motors, Lowe’s Companies, Pfizer, Sprint, Telecom Italia, U.S. Postal Service, Visa International, Wells Fargo, and Yahoo!. MicroStrategy also has relationships with over 300 systems integrators and application development and platform partners, including HP, IBM, PeopleSoft, Sun, and Teradata, a division of NCR. MicroStrategy is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol MSTR. For more information or to purchase or demo MicroStrategy’s software, visit MicroStrategy’s Web site at http://www.microstrategy.com.
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Bill Chatterton
MicroStrategy, Incorporated
703-744-3281
bchatterton@microstrategy.com
Source: MicroStrategy