Financial reporting and analysis company Timeline Inc, which has been getting tough over the enforcement of its patent covering the automatic generation of data marts recently, has settled up with Broadbase Information Systems Inc. Timeline took out a patent infringement suit against Broadbase back in July.
Under the terms of the agreement, Broadbase gets a release of claims and a license for Timeline’s data mart technology in return for $250,000 in cash and 40,000 shares of restricted Broadbase common stock. Broadbase uses data mart technology in its EPM (E-Business Performance Management) products.
While industry analysts originally thought that Bellevue, Washington-based Timeline’s patent might only be applicable to financial applications, Timeline itself has argued that the scope of the patent is far broader. It points out that Broadbase is not a financial software house, and says it believes that there are other companies in the data mart space infringing its data mart patents. It will actively pursue those companies to protect its technology, it says.
Timeline currently also has a patent infringement action against Sagent Technologies Inc. Another suit, against Clarus Corp (in the process of being acquired by Geac Computer Systems Inc) was dropped in July. Timeline says it decided that there was not sufficient sales revenue being generated by the infringing Clarus products to justify further expenditure on the suit.
That’s certainly not the case with Microsoft Corp’s SQL Server 7 and Office 2000 products. Although Microsoft, which has been working with Timeline for five years, signed an agreement in June to license the patent, it is still arguing with Timeline over the rights to sub-license that patent to software developers who add further code or combine other products with SQL Server or Office (CI No 3,702). No settlement has yet been reached. Timeline president and CEO Charles Osenbaugh has said that the sub-license issue has enormous value that could reach tens of millions of dollars.
