St. Clair Settles Patent Litigation with Canon

Minneapolis, Minn. – May 1, 2006. St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants, Inc. announces that it has resolved its patent dispute with Canon Inc. and Canon U.S.A., Inc. (Canon).

On February 28, 2003, St. Clair sued Canon in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware charging Canon with infringing four patents covering digital camera technology. The case proceeded to trial and on October 8, 2004 a jury awarded St. Clair $34.7 million in damages.

On March 17, 2006, St. Clair and Canon entered into a Settlement Agreement that resolves the litigation between them. The settlement includes a payment from Canon to St. Clair. Canon also waived its claim that St. Clair does not own the patents. All other terms of the Agreement are confidential.

In a separate development, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, in response to a request to reexamine the patents, reaffirmed the patentability of all claims of the patents.

St. Clair is represented by Ronald J. Schutz, Chair of the Intellectual Property Litigation Practice Group at the national law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P., which, in January 2004, was named by the American Lawyer as having the Intellectual Property Litigation Department of the Year.

St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants, Inc. is based in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. St. Clair is engaged in intellectual property development and licensing. Other licensees of St. Clair for the patents asserted against Canon include: Sony Corporation, Nikon Corporation, Olympus Optical Co., Ltd., Konica-Minolta, Seiko Epson Corporation, Casio Computer Co., Ltd., Kyocera Corporation, Pentax Corporation, and Samsung Techwin Co., Ltd.