Replies to post #192526 on NeoMedia Technologies, Inc (NEOM)

[Poptech]

JCG: I now get your point of view. My read of the settlement agreement is different. "Free" in licensing deals always has the phrase "royalty-free" in the terms. This was not in the licensing terms of NeoMedia's rights to Scanbuy's patents. Instead, they said the NeoMedia had paid for their rights. Maybe your assumption is right, but there is no evidence of that YET. We still may see the terms.

Forget the ego portion of The Big Win, the combination of NeoMedia and Scanbuy's portfolio is a MASSIVE barrier to entry and a MASSIVE barrier to patent infringement. Throw in Neustar's commitment to building out the indirect mobile barcode infrastructure, and it would take a considerable capital outlay to try and infringe these companies' IP. That we agree on. The considerable gain for NEOM is the litigation risk in the US is near zero. I think we can all agree that it was the litigation that truly killed the market and NeoMedia PPS.

Again forgetting the Big Win, sit in Scanbuy's shoes for just a few minutes. Come on, try it. Scanbuy now shares rights to a powerful portfolio of patents. They have the right to license their former competitor's patents. They have an experienced partner in NeoMedia. The US market can finally move forward. And they are surely congratulating themselves on the one thing this board refuses to discuss. I assure you that as Iain was having a beer, some bubbly was consumed by their new business partner across the pond. This is a very good thing - who wants a resentful licensing agent?

The industry raised a few glasses too. Now it is time to get to work and see if this is as big as some of us think it is. I present mobile barcoding at least one a week, and I am yet to find an audience that knows what I am talking about. They intuitively get the potential, but they find it suspect that their phone can scan a barcode. Together, NeoMedia, Scanbuy, Mobile Tag and Neustar can launch an awareness campaign that will change all that. NeoMedia would have never had that capability without these partners.

I went back and read Iain's interviews and I did not see where he said Neustar would not be involved in processing Scanbuy's transactions. Do you have a reference or quote?

[Poptech]

JCG: I took a closer look at the license agreement this morning. The agreement is clear in the Scanbuy patents included in the license to NeoMedia. In Section 1.2 these include the asserted patents:

1. 6,886,750, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Accessing Electronic Data via a Familiar Printed Medium” (Marshall's asserted patent)
2. 7,287,696, entitled “System and Method for Decoding and Analyzing Barcodes Using a Mobile Device” (Scanbuy's asserted patent)

And any other US-only Marshall Feature Recognition patents that might be under license to Scanbuy. There is only one other known patent owned by Marshall (2.2):

3. 7,600,691, entitled, “Method and apparatus for accessing electronic data via a familiar printed medium”

So, NeoMedia licensed 2 to 3 patents in the settlement (“as well as all divisionals, continuations, continuations-in-part, reissues, reexaminations of the Scanbuy Asserted Patent.”

Determining the number of patents licensed to Scanbuy is more difficult since this is limited to the patents and applications listed on Exhibit A which is not currently released. However, we can certainly assume the list includes asserted patents:

1. 5,933,829, entitled “Automatic Access of Electronic Information Through Secure Machine-Readable Codes on Printed Documents”
2. 6,108,656, entitled “Automatic Access of Electronic Information Through Machine-Readable Codes on Printed Documents”
3. 5,978,773, entitled “System and Method for Using an Ordinary Article of Commerce to Access a Remote Computer”
4. 6,199,048, entitled “System and Method for Automatic Access of a Remote Computer over a Network”

It does appear this list is not complete and Scanbuy could be licensing NeoMedia’s international patents. Under 1.5, “Territory” shall mean those countries identified in Exhibit C as amended from time to time by mutual agreement by the Parties, initially the United States of America.” Exhibit C would be very interesting.