PalmOne Wins Suit Over Patent

Shares of PalmOne Inc., the world’s biggest maker of hand-held computers, rose 11% on Monday after the company won a lawsuit filed by Xerox Corp. over handwriting-recognition technology because a judge said Xerox’s patent was invalid.

The ruling issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Michael A. Telesca in Rochester, N.Y., will lead to the dismissal of the 7-year-old suit against Milpitas, Calif.-based PalmOne and its former parent, 3Com Corp. A U.S. appeals court had upheld a ruling that PalmOne’s Graffiti software infringed the patent, an issue now moot.

The dispute centers on PalmOne’s Graffiti, which uses strokes of a stylus to replicate letters and words. In part because of legal battles, PalmOne switched to another handwriting-recognition software, called Jolt.

Telesca said the patent was invalid because of prior inventions that predate Xerox’s patent and “clearly disclose systems in which single-stroke symbols are definitively recognized.”

PalmOne shares rose $1.94 to $19.99 on Nasdaq. They have more than doubled in the last year.