Source: Ronald A Katz Technology Licensing
LaSalle Bank Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, an indirect subsidiary of Netherlands-based ABN AMRO Bank N.V., and Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P., headquartered in Los Angeles, announced today the settlement of patent litigation between the parties and that, as part of the settlement, LaSalle has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum for a nonexclusive license under a comprehensive portfolio of patents that Katz owns relating to interactive voice applications.
The patents held by Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P. cover a wide range of interactive technology including automated forms of: customer service, securities trading, prescription refill services, merchandising, prepaid services, telephone conferences, registration, home shopping, as well as functions involved in securing information from databases by telephone, interactive cable transactions, and various other uses of toll free and local numbers.
Ronald A. Katz stated, "We welcome LaSalle Bank Corporation to the large group of financial services companies who have purchased license rights under this portfolio."
There are over 150 companies with license rights under this portfolio, including over 15 energy and utility companies. Companies in other industries with license rights under this portfolio include: Advanta Corp., American Century, American Express, Ameritrade Holding Corporation, Automatic Data Processing, Inc., AT&T Corp., Bank of America Corporation, BB&T Corporation, Capital One Services Inc., Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless, Certegy Inc., Dell Inc., Delta Air Lines, Inc., Edward D. Jones & Co., L.P., Equifax Inc., Excel Communications Inc., First Data Corporation, First National Bank of Omaha, First Tennessee National Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Home Shopping Network Inc., Household International, Inc., HSBC Bank USA, International Business Machines (IBM), KeyCorp, MCI Inc., Mediacom Communications Corporation, Mellon Financial Corporation, Merck & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., Metris Companies Inc., Microsoft, MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc., Nationwide, OppenheimerFunds, Inc., People's Bank, Principal Financial Group, Inc., Prudential Financial, Inc., QVC, Inc., Sears, Roebuck and Co., Shop At Home, Inc., Sprint Corporation, SouthTrust Bank, Sunoco, Inc., Synovus, The Gallup Organization, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., The Vanguard Group, Inc., Verizon California Inc. and its affiliates, Wachovia Corporation, and Wells Fargo & Company.
Mr. Katz is the named inventor on a large number of patents primarily in the fields of telecommunications and computing. He also formed Telecredit, Inc., the nation's first on-line real time credit and check cashing authorization system, and was awarded a patent as co-inventor of that technology.