Patent law affecting two security and analytics companies was a recent issue for the Federal District Court for Northern Georgia (based in Atlanta), and specifically at issue was a patent that Verint alleges NICE Systems has infringed upon.
The patent in dispute is number 6,404,857, and was originally issued to Christopher Douglas Blair and Roger Louis Keenan, both of Great Britain. The patent, according to the United States Patent & Trademark Office, is for: "A signal monitoring apparatus and method involving devices for monitoring signals representing communications traffic, devices for identifying at least one predetermined parameter by analyzing the context of the at least one monitoring signal, a device for recording the occurrence of the identified parameter, a device for identifying the traffic stream associated with the identified parameter, a device for analyzing the recorded data relating to the occurrence, and a device, responsive to the analysis of the recorded data, for controlling the handling of communications traffic within the apparatus."
The Federal District Court issued judgment that NICE Systems did infringe upon Verint's patent, and has ordered NICE to pay $3.3 million in damages. NICE Systems has said will ask the court to overturn the verdict and may request an appeal of that court's decision. Nonetheless, the company said that the $3.3 million fine "does not have a material adverse impact on its business."
The case was filed when Verint Americas was doing business as Witness Systems. The original patent description is available on the USPTO.gov website.
