!072594 Lawsuit war breaking out over fax technology It seems that there is a war breaking out over fax-networking technology, and most likely we will see another reexamination at the Patent Office. Last March, Brooktree Technology (Needham, MA) was awarded a patent that allows incoming faxes to be directed to multiple electronic mailboxes that have their own telephone numbers - Direct Inward Dialing technology. For sites with large numbers of people, such technology can be quite useful. Two weeks after receiving the patent, Brooktree sued Gammalink (Sunnyvale, CA), claiming infringement of the patent. Recently, Gammalink was bought out by Dialogic Corporation, providing Gammalink with the funding to countersue Brooktree. Additionally, Gammalink has discovered what it feels is sufficient prior art to have Brooktree's patent declared invalid. According to Jerry Brodsky, president of the American Facsimile Association (Philadelphia, PA), "The Patent Office has been remiss in doing its job" because it apparently did not find prior art evidence of the technology. Gammalink argues that Brooktree is trying to hurt competition by requiring unreasonable license fees. Brooktree counters that the license fees it will require will not disrupt the market. Stay tuned. Given the large number of office automation related networking patents, hardware and software, that have been issued over the years, Gammalin probably has a good chance to have Brooktree's patent overturned. Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service