Pitney Bowes yesterday filed a lawsuit in California Central District Court against Zumbox alleging that Zumbox’s “paperless mail” service for consumers infringes Pitney Bowes patents.
The legal action centres on three U.S. patents: #7,478,140, “A System and Method for Sending Electronic Mail and Parcel Delivery Notification Using Recipient’s Identification Information”; #6,690,773, “Recipient Control Over Aspects of Incoming Messages”; and #7,058,586, “Information Delivery System for Providing Senders with a Recipient’s Messaging Preferences.”
In 2008, Pitney Bowes invested more than US$200 million into R&D, claiming much of that spend was directed at software products. In a statement about the Zumbox filing, Pitney Bowes’ VP of Strategy and New Business Development, Bernie Gracy, commented, “Pitney Bowes has been active in the acquisition, development and deployment of multi-channel messaging solutions, including those based on the platforms acquired from Alysis in 2000, Group 1 Software in 2004, and Emtex in 2006.”
Print this page
