Ad hoc / Announcements

02nd December 2004

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TELES: German Federal Patents Court confirms German skyDSL patent

In the opposition proceedings filed by Deutsche Telekom and SES Astra against the skyDSL patent held by TELES, the 20th senate of German Federal Patents Court yesterday confirmed the validity of the German patent (however, subject to what TELES considers to be a minor limitation of the patent claims).

On the basis of this Federal Patents Court ruling (which is subject to appeal at the German Supreme Court in very exceptional cases), the patent infringement suit filed by TELES against both the Deutsche Telekom AG and SES Astra SA - because of the infringement of the above patent by the "T-DSL via Satellite service" operated by both companies - will now be continued at the Mannheim regional court. The regional court had suspended the patent infringement proceedings up to yesterday's publication of the Federal Patents Court decision. The Mannheim regional court had formerly issued two infringement decisions in favour of TELES in two similar proceedings against Plenexis GmbH and Tellique (see www.teles.de under "skyDSL-Patentverletzungsforum").

This confirmation of the validity of the skyDSL patent is of major importance for the future economic development of TELES, as its very successful skyDSL service is the basis for TELES' ambitious growth strategy. The skyDSL patent now provides legal security for the company's competitive standing.

Prof. Sigram Schindler, CEO