MARSHALL (Legal Newsline) – A Texas company is suing popular laptop maker Acer, camera company Olympus and two other companies for patent infringement.
DataTech IP LLC, based in Plano, filed the lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The federal court has become a popular venue for patent infringement cases because of its set of local rules for such cases and rather fast trial settings.
On Monday, DataTech filed separate lawsuits against Acer Inc., Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Co., Golfsmith International Inc. and Olympus Imaging America Inc.
Acer, which is headquartered in Taiwan, was named the fourth-largest PC vendor in the world last year. It makes desktop and laptop PCs, tablets, servers, storage devices and displays, among other things.
Fort Worth-based Williamson-Dickie is a work clothing manufacturer, and is more commonly referred to as the brand Dickies.
Golfsmith International Inc. is a golf specialty retailer based in Austin.
Olympus, based in Japan, is known for its digital cameras.
DataTech — for which a website could not be found — contends all four companies are infringing on U.S. Patent No. 6,895,554. The company said it was issued the ‘554 patent, entitled “Method of Document Assembly,” in May 2005.
Specifically, DataTech alleges the companies are using a system for assembling an electronic document to: open or initialize a document having at least one live data field in which customers are asked to provide their billing and/or shipping information; initialize a record in computer memory for each live data field; insert user-provided data, such as shipping and/or billing information, into a first data field; and insert data from the first field into a second live data field based on the type of information to be stored in each field.
Such a system, DataTech argues, is an “integral” part of the four companies’ websites.
DataTech, which does not have a parent corporation and no publicly held corporation owns 10 percent or more of its stock, is seeking attorneys’ fees and an unspecified amount in damages.
Andrew W. Spangler of Spangler Law PC, based in Longview, Texas, is representing DataTech.
The cases have been assigned to Judge Rodney Gilstrap.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at patents@legalnewsline.com.