A cut and paste from another version - interesting background on Keith Benson.
The plaintiff, Newcom Holdings Pty. Ltd. ("Newcom"), is a privately owned Australian company. Keith Benson, a substantial shareholder of Newcom who has served as its director and chief operating officer, invented and patented a variety of technologies for use in the mobile commerce industry. In the fall of 1999, Newcom and Benson moved to transfer ownership of intellectual property they owned to avoid or minimize their Australian taxes and to exploit business opportunities in the United States. To implement these goals, in September 1999, Benson and Newcom established Funge Systems International Ltd. ("FSIL"), a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and controlled by Newcom and Benson. In December 1999, Newcom formed a second entity, Funge Systems, Inc. ("FSI"), which was incorporated in Delaware. Newcom retained control of FSI by making FSIL the majority shareholder of FSI. To execute its business plan, FSI had to raise $15 million in capital; in 2000, it succeeded in raising nearly $12 million from third-party investors, who collectively obtained 19% of FSI's common stock. Benson Dep. at 41.
FSI's primary assets of relevance to this litigation were two patent applications transferred to it by Newcom. The first was Patent Application No. 08/782,244, which was filed on January 14, 1997, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") for a mobile commerce technology called Card-Switch.2 It is not
[369 F.Supp.2d 704]
clear from the record when Card-Switch was transferred to FSI.3 The second patent application, No. 09/594,016, which is the subject of this litigation, was filed by Benson with the PTO on June 15, 2000. This second patent was for the V-SIM accessory,4 a device that can enable mobile phones to conduct mobile commerce transactions. This asset was ultimately transferred to FSI on October 6, 2000, after a series of assignments from Benson to Newcom to FSIL to FSI.
FGF Price at posting:
1.8¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
