EVERETT – Intermec Technologies Corp. has suspended a licensing policy for use of its radio frequency identification patents in order to help create one industrywide standard for the technology.
The Everett-based maker of RFID tags, scanners and related equipment for inventory tracking was the first to press major patent claims related to RFID earlier this year.
Its stance and a lawsuit against Matrics Inc. of Maryland came just as EPCGlobal Inc., an industry group, was finalizing a standard for the next generation of RFID products. Intermec has been an active participant in that process.
Tom Miller, Intermec’s president, said EPCGlobal is asking companies to make prototypes to test out the new standard. But those companies were hesitant to do that out of fears the prototypes might violate patent rights held by Intermec and others.
For that reason, Miller said, suspending Intermec’s policy for 60 days is for the long-term good of the industry, and Intermec itself.
“At the end of the day, nothing will move forward until the standard is validated by this testing,” he said.
Radio frequency identification tags, which consist of a microchip and tiny antenna, can store information that is read by special scanning devices.
As the 60-year-old technology has advanced and become cheaper, it’s drawn interest from the likes of Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Defense. Both see potential benefits and cost savings in using RFID tags to keep track of inventory.
Intermec holds more than 130 patents related to RFID, including some that cover the core technology for tags and scanning devices.
In 2003, Intermec began offering a licensing agreement that allows others to use any of those patents for a fee. The company also has donated rights to five other patents toward the new standard.
Intermec and its parent company, Unova Inc., have in the past flexed their patent rights over smart battery technology, which is widely used in laptop computers. Intermec ended up settling intellectual property cases and winning more than $115 million in royalties in those cases.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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