14th of September 2009

The USPTO confirmed in a comuncation today that it will issue Host Telecom a notice of allowance in relation to its divisional application reference number 11/850, 8259.

The notice comes following an extensive series of discussions between Host, their US attorney (Michael Best and Friedrich LLP) and the USPTO, which began in March 2009.

Host patents relate to the delivery of multimedia messages during the pre-connect phase of any telephone call (video ring back tones or VRBT) and were originally filed in 2001. The extensive delays in moving the applications forward relate to the USPTO’s chronic shortage of examiners with dialogue only commencing in earnest in 2007.

Based on feedback from the examiner Host divided its original application (which applied to both caller and receiver) into two separate applications one for the caller and one for the receiver. Perhaps surprisingly the divisional (receiver) application has become the first to be issued with a notice of allowance.

Dialogue with the examiner is ongoing with regard to the original application (caller) with further discussions planned for early October. Host remains confident that the original application will proceed to grant.

Host CEO Colin Barnes added “This is excellent news for us, we have been in discussion with a number of parties who have interest in acquiring our patents and believe that this development will move things forward significantly”.