DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Securus Technologies, a leading provider of civil and criminal justice technology solutions for public safety, investigation, corrections and monitoring, announced today that it will be sending a settlement proposal to GTL by June 9, 2017, with details on settlement of our respective, long-standing patent litigation lawsuits.
“I wanted to extend an olive branch to GTL and settle our respective lawsuits and our various attempts to invalidate each other’s patents,” said Richard A. (“Rick”) Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Securus Technologies.
Key Terms of the Proposed Settlement
1) Settlement of all patent related issues for $0 dollars from either party;
2) No future patent related litigation into perpetuity;
3) Mutual license agreements for all existing and all prospective patents for zero cost;
4) Establishment of a joint Securus/GTL Recidivism Reduction Foundation including a $10 million funding commitment with the objective of education of inmates and positive life coaching skills beyond incarceration;
5) Use of each other’s patents in order to build technologies that benefit inmates, friends/family, corrections, law enforcement, and all of society; and
6) Non-disparagement provision that focuses comments on positive aspects of each other’s business attributes.
“I had previously indicated that we needed $115 million from GTL for a longer term license agreement based on other agreements that we negotiated with competitors including GTL. We will eliminate that request based on an agreement to follow the six (6) Key Terms outlined above,” added Smith. “I love our industry and company, and want to move both Securus and GTL forward without the significant bandwidth and financial resources that are required by continuing our litigation,” Smith said.
“To date, for 2015 through April, 2017, we have spent approximately $15 million in outside legal costs to defend our patent portfolio, to invalidate GTL patents, and to file patent infringement lawsuits against GTL. I expect GTL has spent at least $25 million doing the same things – so approximately $40 million in total. Projecting that out another five (5) years is at least another $125 million – which would be better directed to building products that benefit inmates, friends/family, corrections, law enforcement, and all of society. It is time to do the right thing,” concluded Smith.
ABOUT SECURUS TECHNOLOGIES
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and serving more than 3,450 public safety, law enforcement and corrections agencies and over 1,200,000 inmates across North America, Securus Technologies is committed to serve and connect by providing emergency response, incident management, public information, investigation, biometric analysis, communication, information management, inmate self-service, and monitoring products and services in order to make our world a safer place to live. Securus Technologies focuses on connecting what matters®. To learn more about our full suite of civil and criminal justice technology solutions, please visit SecurusTechnologies.com.
