FFT settles patent lawsuit with Optellios

April 17, 2012
Company now the sole owner of the '736 patent'

Future Fibre Technologies, a provider of fiber-optic intrusion detection systems, announced on Tuesday that it has settled a patent lawsuit with rival Optellios.

In the suit, which was originally filed in July 2008, FFT claimed that it was the rightful owner of U.S. Patent No. 7,142,736 (“736 Patent”), which according to a search of the patent office’s website pertains to “distributed fiber sensor with interference detection and polarization state management.” Claiming that they were the rightful inventors of the patent, the company sought to have the patent assigned to FFT.

Optellios, however, asserted that the suit was precluded by a previous settlement agreement between the companies.

According to a statement, both companies have now reached a settlement over the dispute and an order to dismiss the case has been issued. As of December 22, 2011, Optellios assigned the 736 patent to FFT and the company is now its sole owner. In addition, earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware issued an order to correct the “inventorship” of the patent and ordered the patent office to add the FFT inventors to the patent.

"We are pleased that this action is settled, and we have succeeded in our goal to be the sole owner of the 736 Patent, and that the court agreed that the FFT inventors be added to the patent," said Rob Broomfield, CEO of FFT.