Parsippany, New Jersey-based Dialogic Corp and its wholly-owned subsidiary GammaLink Inc have settled a patent dispute with Needham, Massachusetts-based Brooktrout Technology Inc. The disagreement centred on an alleged infringement of a Brooktrout patent covering the use of Direct Inward Dialling for certain routing applications and an ensuing countersuit by GammaLink last August (CI No 2,484). The technology is an integral part of a computer-based facsimile transmission method in which the digits of a telephone number can be used to direct facsimile messages to a specific mailbox on a local area network. In its original suit, Brooktrout claimed that it had a patent application dating back to 1989 for the system, but GammaLink contended that it had discovered publications and applications that were in the marketplace prior to Brooktrout’s patent submission, which was therefore invalid. As part of the settlement terms, specific details of the companies’ settlement were not disclosed. However, Brooktrout seems to have had the better of it, since Dialogic and GammaLink have obtained a licence under Brooktrout’s patent for the use of Direct Inward Dialling telephone service with computer-based facsimile messaging systems. For its own part, Brooktrout has agreed that it will treat Dialogic’s and GammaLink’s facsimile board customers no less favourably than its own facsimile board customers.
