Palm Pays Xerox $22.5M to Settle Patent Clash

Palm will pay Xerox $22.5 million to end a nearly decade-long patent clash over software used in Palm handheld organizers to recognize users’ handwriting, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The original lawsuit was filed by Stamford, Conn.-based Xerox against Palm back in 1997, and it charged the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based producer of the Treo handheld with infringing upon a Xerox patent on one-stroke symbols in its “Graffiti” handwriting technology, according to the Journal.

Roughly four years later in 2001, Palm was found guilty of infringing on the patent in federal court; however, Palm appealed that ruling, and in 2004 the court reversed its decision in favor of Palm, the Journal reports. Another appeals court reversed that judgment in early June, according to the Journal.

Palm’s $22.5 million will buy its way out of the legal dispute, as well as grant it license to the Xerox handwriting technology at issue and two additional patents, the Journal reports. Former Palm parent company, 3Com, which was named as a defendant in the suit, is also covered by the deal, according to the Journal. The settlement also entails a seven-year “patent peace” in which the two companies agreed not to pursue further legal action, the Journal reports.

Palm now uses a separate handwriting-recognition technology in its handheld device, called Jot, in part because of the patent dispute between it and Xerox, according to the Journal.

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