Last week marked the end of two patent disputes for Symbol Technologies Inc., a manufacturer of bar code scanners and the holder of a number of wireless technology patents. On Wednesday, Symbol announced that it had settled a patent dispute with Terabeam, Inc. regarding Symbol’s patents related to 802.11 (the wireless communication standard commonly referred to as Wi-Fi). Under the settlement license agreement, Symbol will acquire certain patents from Terabeam, a license for others, and a settlement fee. On Thursday, Symbol announced that the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York upheld an earlier arbitration ruling against Metrologic Instruments Inc. Back in 1996, Metrologic licensed a patented bar code scanning technology from Symbol but stopped paying royalties of $10 per scanner to Symbol in 2001, alleging that the products being sold by Metrologic were no longer covered by the license agreement. Symbol sued Metrologic for breach of contract, and an arbitrator awarded past royalties to Symbol, which was upheld by Judge Rakoff on Thursday.

Symbol’s Terabeam Press Release: LINK
Symbol’s Metrologic Press Release: LINK
Symbol’s Patent Webpage – Over 800 Issued: LINK