TechRadium Files Lawsuit Against Twitter, Alleges Infringement of Three Patents

TechRadium, Inc., a leading mass notification company based in Sugar Land, Texas, has filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Houston against the popular social network and micro-blogging giant, Twitter, Inc., alleging that Twitter has infringed on three TechRadium patents.

“TechRadium has spent a lot of time and money developing our technology and we will potentially lose any reward for our efforts if Twitter continues its unlicensed use of our technology,” Louis A. Vetrano, Jr., TechRadium’s general counsel, said.

Vetrano said that a number of companies and municipalities have indicated they will be using Twitter as their emergency notification system during hurricanes and other emergencies. “That’s our patented technology,” he said.

Attorney W. Shawn Staples of the Mostyn Law firm in Houston filed the infringement charges against Twitter and said: “It appears that Twitter’s core functionality is squarely within the technology described by TechRadium’s patents.”

TechRadium develops and sells mass notification systems that allow an originator to send a single message simultaneously and instantaneously to multiple subscribers. The subscriber receives the information through any combination of devices, including telephone, cell phone, fax, wireless systems, alerts and other methods, in as many as 12 languages.

TechRadium markets its technology under the trade name IRIS(TM), for Immediate Response Information System. “IRIS is commonly used by many school systems, businesses, governments, and the U.S. military. It’s a well-proven and popular system for which we have numerous patents,” Vetrano said.

Staples, the attorney who filed the lawsuit, said TechRadium has aggressively and successfully defended its patents in court “and will continue to do so anytime there are infringements.” Such actions are usually settled by the defendant company agreeing to pay licensing fees to use the patented technology, he said.