San Ramon, California-based Insight Corp has filed suit against Hewlett Packard Co claiming patent infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract and unfair competition. The nub of the Insight suit, filed last Friday at Oakland Federal Court, is that HP signed a non-disclosure agreement covering technical and marketing information for an Insight project called ‘Virtual Image’ (VI) back in 1995, aimed at providing what Insight calls ‘a practical solution’ to the problem of downloading images from the web. The company says that its VI project was the basis of HP’s web imaging strategy, launched in September 1996 – and that HP exploited Insight’s technology without permission or compensation. Since then HP products such as the Imaging for Internet Protocol, the OpenPics web server printing product, Jetsend image transmission protocol and Photo Smart digital photograph printing tool, have been launched as part of the strategy. And in June 1997, HP acquired electronic commerce firm Verifone Inc for $472m, a deal Insight says was made to capitalize on its new image-dependent web commerce business. Insight won a US patent related to its VI technology in June 1998. But litigation counsel for Insight, Breton A. Boccherieri, said that the suit went beyond patent infringement. Insight’s other counts, such as trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract, are based on the confidential relationship that HP had with Insight, which culminated in the disclosure of Insight’s technology. Questioned on why the suit had been filed nearly two years after HP launched the technology that supposedly broke their agreement with Insight, Boccherieri said that all factors taken into consideration, this was an appropriate time for the case. A spokesperson for HP could not comment on the case other than to say that the firm had not received the court filing and…were not warned that the action was coming.
