A UK company which recently acquired the rights to a US patent on
secure electronic data interchange (EDI) has said it intends to
enforce the patent to extract licence fees from vendors of software
that is commonly used in B2B exchanges.
A UK company which recently acquired the rights to a US patent on
secure electronic data interchange (EDI) has said it intends to
enforce the patent to extract licence fees from vendors of software
that is commonly used in B2B exchanges.
EDI is a standard format for exchanging business data. A
software package called Templar was designed in 1995 using
encryption to protect on-line EDI transactions. In 1998, the
company behind the package took out a patent in the US called
“Method and system for providing secure EDI over an open
network.”
Manchester-based CI Software Solutions recently acquired the
rights to Templar, including the US patent. The company has
announced its intention to extract fees from EDI vendors who may be
unwittingly infringing the patent. Managing Director Jonathan
Palmer said that by doing so, “IT managers will be able to enjoy
more secure transactions knowing that their valuable data is being
exchanged conforming to our secure patent.”
It is not yet known if there are any patents for the Templar
software in countries other than the US.
CI Software Solutions has said that it plans to donate 25% of
revenues from EDI royalties to the Comic Relief charity.
