Looks like IBM and HP have just been hit with patent infringement lawsuits. According to a release, BackWeb Technologies has filed separate lawsuits in the United States District Court in San Francisco, California against IBM and HP, alleging patent infringement.
The patents seems to deal with technology for transmitting information between a remote network and a local computer and distributed client-based data caching systems. BackWeb alleges that IBM’s Tivoli Provisioning Manager and IBM’s recently acquired BigFix products infringe four U.S. patents owned by BackWeb. BackWeb also alleges that HP’s Client Automation product infringes three U.S. patents owned by BackWeb covering methods for transmitting information between a remote network and a local computer.
BackWeb’s has created a “push” communications technology, specialized for the connecting mobile workforces. The technology is deployed to sales forces, field employees, mobile managers and remote operations. Typical applications include enterprise sales force automation, CRM, e-learning and training.
BackWeb could have some grounding in this; the company recently settled a patent lawsuit with Microsoft, where BackWeb ended up licensing its technology to the company. It’s unclear what the financial terms of the agreement were in June. BackWeb has also sued Symantec, and Sybase (which was settled).
