The Ottawa-based patent licensing company said Monday that it has signed a letter of intent with Telus to settle a lawsuit filed in Calgary.
As part of the settlement, Telus has agreed to sell any rights it may have had in six U.S. patents, three Canadian patents and one European patents related to Wi-Fi wireless technology and power consumption in digital subscriber line, or DSL, products.
WiLAN first announced in January that it had learned of the lawsuit, which also named WiLAN’s co-founders and former executives, Michel Fattouche and Hatim Zaghloul.
Telus’s filing – which was made on April 23, 2009 but wasn’t formally served to WiLAN – had indicated it was disputing WiLAN’s ownership of several patents including U.S. Patent Nos. RE37,802 and 5,282,222, which are the centrepieces of the massive lawsuit WiLAN launched in October 2007 in the eastern district of Texas against 22 companies, including big names such as Best Buy, Lenovo and Texas Instruments.
The suit also involved U.S. Patent Nos. RE36,533, 5,369,670, 5,555,268 and 5,570,305; Canadian Patent Nos. 2,064,975, 2,067,436-9 and 2,108,103; and European Patent No. 0562868. These are related to WiLAN’s “channel estimation” technology, which improves mobile communications receiver performance.
The company earlier said it’s not actively licensing this group of patents.
WiLAN said it expects the formal agreement for the settlement will be signed within the next few weeks.
Shares of WiLAN rose by as much as seven cents following the announcement, and at 2:05 p.m. the stock was up four cents to $2.71.
