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Monday August 21, 8:30 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Stratos Lightwave, Inc.
Stratos Lightwave Expands Licensing Program to Include IBM
CHICAGO, Aug. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Stratos Lightwave, Inc. (Nasdaq:
STLW - news) today announced that it has entered into a licensing
agreement with IBM Corporation. The companies have agreed to
cross-license certain segments of their patent portfolios, including Stratos
Lightwave's patents relating to GBIC (Gigabit Interface Converters) and
SFF (Small Form Factor) transceivers and receptacles, and other
optoelectronic transceiver modules and receptacles. Terms of the
agreement were not disclosed.
``We are very pleased with the progress of our licensing program,'' said
James W. McGinley, Stratos's President and CEO. ``The industry's growing
recognition of our intellectual property is a validation of our engineering
leadership in optical transceivers.'' Cielo Communications, Inc., Fujikura
Ltd., Molex Incorporated and Vixel Corporation have also entered into
license agreements with Stratos. These licenses cover patents relating to
certain technical features of Removable Optoelectronic Modules.
Stratos is a plaintiff in three lawsuits pending against Agilent Technologies,
Finisar Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Infineon Technologies AG,
Optical Communications Products, Inc., and Tyco Electronics involving
related intellectual property rights, including certain technical features of
Removable Optoelectronic Modules.
On August 15, 2000, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reissued
Stratos Lightwave's Patent for a Removable Optoelectronic Module (U.S.
Patent Number Re. 36,820). The U.S. patent office has now examined this
patent twice having issued the original patent in 1996. The second
examination of this patent included the review of more than 300 prior art
references. ``We are pleased with the Patent Office's decision to reissue
this patent, which provides additional protection for Stratos optoelectronic
technology,'' stated McGinley.
Stratos Lightwave, Inc. develops, manufactures and sells optical
subsystems and components for high data rate networking, data storage,
and telecommunications applications. These optical subsystems are used
in local area networks (LANs), storage area networks (SANs), metropolitan
area networks (MANs), wide area networks (WANs), and central office
networking in the telecommunications market. The company also designs,
manufactures, and sells a full line of optical components and cable
assemblies for use in these networks. Stratos Lightwave, Inc. is a
subsidiary of Methode Electronics, Inc. (Nasdaq: METHA - news). |
