14 DAY TRIAL // While HP did not take an official stand once the news that a patent violation lawsuit filed against it and Microsoft was dismissed, the Redmond Company stated that it welcomed the ruling and that its legal representatives were pleased with the development and closure of the case. Legal actions were initiated against both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard by E-Pass Technologies in February 2002.
On August 4, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt has dismissed the patent-infringement lawsuit related to the implementation of mobile technologies. The ruling came to grant a summary judgment motion filed by the Redmond Company for the case. E-Pass has alleged that Microsoft and HP were infringing on a technology for centralizing and storing data from an array of credit cards onto a single electronic multi-function card. In this context, E-Pass pointed out that mobile devices belonging to both Microsoft and HP offered clear proof of patent infringement.
"As a company that respects the intellectual property of others we are pleased that Microsoft prevailed on its non-infringement claim," declared in a statement Tom Burt, deputy general counsel for Microsoft.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas was the place where E-Pass' patent violation lawsuit came to an end while Microsoft's motion to dismiss the case, supported by a similar HP initiative, was granted. Furthermore, at the time of this article, E-Pass' Website was defaced following a hacking of the Spykids Group, proving that misery always has company.