BackWeb Sues IBM And HP Over Information Transfer Technology Patents

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Looks like IBM and HP have just been hit with patent infringement lawsuits. According to a release, BackWeb Technologies has filed separate lawsuits in the United States District Court in San Francisco, California against IBM and HP, alleging patent infringement.

The patents seems to deal with technology for transmitting information between a remote network and a local computer and distributed client-based data caching systems. BackWeb alleges that IBM’s Tivoli Provisioning Manager and IBM’s recently acquired BigFix products infringe four U.S. patents owned by BackWeb. BackWeb also alleges that HP’s Client Automation product infringes three U.S. patents owned by BackWeb covering methods for transmitting information between a remote network and a local computer.

BackWeb’s has created a “push” communications technology, specialized for the connecting mobile workforces. The technology is deployed to sales forces, field employees, mobile managers and remote operations. Typical applications include enterprise sales force automation, CRM, e-learning and training.

BackWeb could have some grounding in this; the company recently settled a patent lawsuit with Microsoft, where BackWeb ended up licensing its technology to the company. It’s unclear what the financial terms of the agreement were in June. BackWeb has also sued Symantec, and Sybase (which was settled).

Website: backweb.com

BackWeb mobilizes critical web applications and content for mobile workforces and remote offices. The solution is commonly deployed to sales forces, field employees, mobile managers and remote operations. Typical e-business applications include enterprise sales force automation, CRM, e-learning and training and Human Capital Management (HCM). Content examples include document repositories and rich media.

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