Due mainly to costly International Trade Commission patent infringement litigation...
Due mainly to costly International Trade Commission patent infringement litigation against Motorola and HTC, Immersion’s litigation expenses in 2012 soared to $8 million from about $500,000 in 2011, Chief Financial Officer Paul Norris said on an earnings call Thursday. Immersion…
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filed a complaint in February 2012 with the ITC claiming that Motorola Mobility Android-based smartphones infringed on six Immersion patents covering various uses of haptic effects in connection with touchscreens. Immersion also filed a patent suit against Motorola Mobility in U.S. District Court, Wilmington, Del. Immersion later added HTC to the complaints. Immersion signed a settlement and license deal with Google and Motorola Mobility in November, resolving their patent dispute. Immersion is continuing its Basic Haptics litigation against HTC and feels “confident regarding the strength of our case,” Immersion CEO Vic Viegas said Thursday. A hearing in the ITC action is scheduled for late March, with an initial determination due in June and a final determination in October, he said. Forty-six percent of Immersion’s Q4 revenue came from the mobile device sector, Norris said. Interactive games were 21 percent of revenue, while 23 percent of revenue came from the medical sector, 6 percent from the auto industry and 4 percent from chip and other areas, he said. That included revenue from royalty and licensing, product sales and development contracts, he said. Revenue for Q4 ended Dec. 31 grew 15 percent from Q4 the prior year to $8.9 million. Its loss narrowed to $200,000 from $270,000. Royalty and license revenue grew 12 percent to $7.6 million. Immersion’s software licensing business is profitable and is “expanding rapidly, particularly” in the mobile market where its OEM customers have shipped more than 550 million TouchSense-enabled smartphones and tablets to date, said Viegas. Immersion expanded its mobile market presence in “important new geographies” including Japan and China last year, he said. The company recently expanded its license deal with LG Electronics and signed a license deal with Panasonic. Immersion is “seeing great opportunities with new OEM customers,” he said. In China, Immersion is “actively engaged” with chip partners to offer haptic solutions to OEMs there and ZTE, Huawei and Xiaomi all released new devices in 2012 that incorporated Immersion chip-based solutions, he said. Immersion is “engaged” with various companies that aren’t existing licensees or litigants and “we continue to make progress,” he said.