Thursday morning, Denver, Colorado-based telecommunications company Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q) said it has settled the patent litigation with Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing for an undisclosed amount. Under the settlement plan, Quest would also obtain nonexclusive license under a comprehensive portfolio of patents that Katz owns relating to interactive voice applications.
The automated interactive technology patents held by Katz include customer service, prescription refill services, securities trading, merchandising, prepaid services, telephone conferences, registration and home shopping. Katz also provides functions involved in securing information from databases by telephone, interactive cable transactions, and various other uses of toll free and local numbers.
Katz has invented a number of patents in the telecommunication and computing fields, including the formation of Telecredit, Inc, which was the first to provide online real time credit and check cashing authorization system.
There are about 25 energy and utility companies among the 200 companies holding various licenses under Katz portfolio. Some of the other major companies are American Express, Atmos Energy Corp., AT&T Corp., Bank of America Corp., Countrywide Financial Corp., Dell Inc., Delta Air Lines, Inc., HP Co., Hilton Hotels Corp., Home Shopping Network Inc., HSBC Bank USA, IBM, Merck & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Prudential Financial, Inc., Sears, Roebuck and Co., Sprint Corp., Sunoco, Inc., Verizon California Inc. and its affiliates, Wachovia Corp., Walgreen Co., Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., WellPoint, Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., West Corp. and Zions Bancorp.
Q closed Wednesday's regular trading session at $7.07, up $0.04 on a volume of 12.87 million shares, lower than the three month average volume of 21.51 million shares.
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