ETD: 756 Bar code industry wins case against Lemelson
Foundation; Gifts & Decorative Accessories for February; Valentine's
Day: Third Most Gifted Holiday
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Jan 29 11:30:44 GMT 2004
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0756 January 29, 2004
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Bar code industry wins case against Lemelson Foundation
[3] Gifts & Decorative Accessories for February
[4] Valentine's Day: Third Most Gifted Holiday
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
The NYC area got hit with another big snow storm - 6" to 15" of snow fell,
mostly overnight. They did a great job plowing, and the roads are
clear. I don't know ho badly it affected retailing, but it can't be
good. This season has been the worst snow in over 10 years - over 30" of snow.
Today we have some interesting material. One is settlement of an
interesting lawsuit that has been going on since 1999. Seems a man named
Lemelson had a number of patents on bar code technology. Well the Lemelson
Foundation charged licensing fees and got settlements for use of bar code
technology and collected over $1 billion in the past decade! Interesting
case.
Another major gift-giving holiday is coming - Valentine's Day. How good is
this - the third biggest gift-giving holiday - for your business? I now
see Valentine gifts for pets, so it's not only for lovers.
How is business doing thus far this year?
Let's hear about your business, which will remain for posterity at
our "Members: Who Are You?" site.
http://etailersdigest.com/resources/members/index.htm And we have a form
there for you to tell us about you. As I said when I first proposed this
idea, we have "known" each other for a long time, yet we often don't know
anything about each other. So, tell us who you are and what you do.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Bar code industry wins case against Lemelson Foundation
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A consortium of bar code equipment manufacturers has claimed victory in a
patent infringement case that could save their customers millions of
dollars in licensing fees. The U.S. District Court in Nevada found that bar
code and machine vision patents held by the Lemelson Medical, Educational &
Research Foundation, Limited Partnership, are invalid and unenforceable.
The Foundation's patent claims formed the basis of numerous lawsuits
against end user companies—such as General Motors, Intel and Wal-Mart—that
garnered it lucrative licensing agreements and settlements.
A group of bar code companies led by Symbol Technologies Inc. filed suit
against the Lemelson Foundation in 1999. The case was consolidated with a
similar suit filed by machine vision equipment maker Cognex Corp. in 2000.
"Symbol and Cognex products do not work like anything disclosed and claimed
by Lemelson, nor do those products embody each and every limitation of any
claim asserted by Lemelson," wrote Chief Judge Philip Pro of the U.S.
district court in Las Vegas in his ruling. "In sum, Lemelson's patented
system could not be used to read a bar code, nor does the Lemelson common
specification reveal any teaching or suggestion of catching information or
identifying an article by the decoding of encoded information."
Symbol was joined in the lawsuit by Accu-Sort Systems Inc., Intermec
Technologies Corp., Metrologic Instruments Inc., PSC Inc., Psion Teklogix
Corp., and Zebra Technologies Corp.
A history of litigation
The controversy over the bar code patents has its roots in the 1950s, when
an unassuming inventor named Jerome Lemelson began applying for patents for
his myriad inventions. During the next 40 years, Lemelson would become one
of the most prolific inventors in the United States, holding more than 500
patents for everything from crying baby dolls to manufacturing processes.
He died in 1997, with almost 40 more patents still pending.
From the start, Lemelson spent almost as much time in court defending his
patents as he did creating new inventions. His fortunes were originally
built on word processing technology he licensed to IBM and tape drive
systems he licensed to Sony (which were included in the WalkMan) during the
1970s.
In the late 1980s, Lemelson and his attorney, Gerald Hosier, started filing
lawsuits against Japanese and then American automakers based on the bar
code and machine vision patents. Over the next decade, the Lemelson
Foundation raked in more than $1 billion in licensing fees and settlements,
claiming that almost any company using bar code or machine vision
technology was infringing on the patents.
The 14 patents in question were issued to Lemelson between 1978 and 1994,
from applications dating from the mid-1950s and early 1960s. Licensees and
technology vendors claimed Lemelson had deliberately delayed the
application process—a practice known as "submarining"—and called the
Foundation's tactics extortion.
Lemelson's litigiousness, though, was only matched by his philanthropy.
Over the years, the Foundation's riches endowed a wing of the Smithsonian
and provided numerous prizes and grants through universities like MIT. They
also made Hosier one of the wealthiest attorneys in the U.S.
The ruling Friday may effectively end the cash flow. The Foundation had
seven lawsuits pending in Phoenix against 400 companies (including Intel
and Wal-Mart) prior to the Symbol lawsuit. If the Lemelson Foundation loses
its appeal, those cases—with $300 million in royalties at stake—will be
dismissed.
Some companies that have already paid fees to the Lemelson Foundation might
have a claim to get their money back if they can prove they were
fraudulently induced to pay, or if they specified they were paying in
protest subject to the outcome of the Symbol/Cognex litigation.
http://www.frontlinetoday.com/frontline/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=83111
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[3] Gifts & Decorative Accessories for February
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More and more housewares are being introduced to the gift market. We've
combined them with specialty foods and called the whole category Gourmet
Goods. It's a new product territory for many retailers, as editors Bessie
Nestoras and Caroline Kennedy report in the February issue. ... Many
decorative accessories vendors offer candle lines that reflect their
particular design aesthetic. Editor Meredith Schwartz offers some options.
... Using a few simple techniques, a Wisconsin couple turns their "bowling
alley" strip mall space into a home decor retail haven. ... Columnist Linda
Cahan offers tips on how to use color-spotting to coordinate the entire
look of a store. ... The high cost of health insurance is the topic of
financial management expert Mark Battersby's column, the Editor's Letter,
and our retailers' responses on the "We Asked ... You Answered" page. ...
All this, plus The Top 5 List, the news, and much more in the February
issue of Gifts & Decorative Accessories.
Quinn Halford, Editor In Chief
Matthew Kalash, Editor
Gifts & Dec Online
www.giftanddec.com
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[4] Valentine's Day: Third Most Gifted Holiday
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St. Valentine's Day, February 14, will be celebrated with cards, gifts
and other remembrances. Originally a pagan Roman festival, it was adapted
by the Christian church and linked to St. Valentine, a third century
martyr. Today this traditional lovers' holiday has been transformed into a
"gifting" holiday, celebrated not just between paramours but among friends,
family and loved ones.
In new research, Unity Marketing found that seventy percent of gift-givers
honor Valentine's Day by giving a present. Those who celebrate spend on
average $126, buying 2.4 gifts. Out of the seven major gifting holidays,
Valentines Day is the third most widely gifted holiday, after Christmas (96
percent) and Mother's Day (74 percent).
"For retailers and marketers Valentine's Day is a welcome mid-winter sales
boost," says luxury marketing expert Pam Danziger, president of Unity
Marketing and author of Why People Buy Things They Don't Need. "But the
year-round gift marketing opportunity is often overlooked."
"Gifting holidays account for just over half of the gifters" $2,062
budgets, leaving the rest available throughout the year for occasion-driven
gift giving—birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, housewarming and new babies.
"Gifting represents a rare exponential marketing opportunity where you can
touch two target markets directly: the gift buyer and the recipient. For
retailers, gifting has the advantages and promotional marketing power of
sampling and word-of-mouth, but it magnifies and intensifies that
power. Retailers need a gifting strategy that takes advantage of its full
relationship potential, not just for holidays, but throughout the year as
well."
Key findings about Valentine's Day gift-giving, based on a survey of 950
gift givers who spent over $250 throughout the year, not just at Christmas,
include:
Valentine's Day goes gender-neutral
Women are as likely to give Valentine's Day gifts as men —68 percent of
women and 72 percent of men buy presents. Women gifters buy more
Valentine's Day gifts (2.7 on average) than men (2.2 presents). Because of
this, retailers need to merchandise gift items that are suitable for both
genders to give and receive. Men still spend more on Valentine's Day
gifts, averaging $171 buying presents, compared with $78 spent by women.
More Valentine's Day gifting goes on among the young
"A heart that loves is always young,"but in the case of Valentine's Day
gifting, the youthful take the lead. So while 85 percent of millennial
generation adults (born from 1977 to 1985) bought a Valentine's Day gift
last year, only 76 percent of genXers (1965-1976) and 68 percent of baby
boomers (1946-1964) did. The young also spend more on Valentine's gifts,
average $142 among millennials, compared with $122 among genXers and $114
among boomers.
Families with children are more attuned to Valentine's Day gifting
Households with children under 18 years are more likely to celebrate
Valentine's Day with a gift (78 percent) as those without children (68
percent). Households with children spend more and give more individual gifts.
Flowers and plants, candles, and jewelry and watches top the list of
popular gifts
Among the 15 popular giftware items surveyed, the top gifts among
Valentine's Day gifters are flowers and plants (56 percent); candles and
accessories (53 percent); and jewelry and watches (50 percent), followed by
plush or stuffed animals (41 percent).
This new study, Gifting Report: The Who, What, Where, How Much and Why of
Gift Giving & Shopping, presents an experiential research perspective of
the gifting market. Combining qualitative and quantitative research, it
reveals gift giving incidence and spending throughout the whole year,
including seven major gifting holidays and 12 gifting occasions (e.g.
birthdays, anniversary, wedding, friendship, etc.). The key attributes of a
good gift are presented, as are the types of stores where gifters prefer to
shop and why. How people choose across the wide range of gifting options is
explored, including gift certificates and cash, home furnishings,
entertainment, apparel, gifts of experience, etc. Finally the
personalities of three types of gift givers with different gift giving and
buying motivations are explored.
For more information about the study, visit
http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/reports2/gifting/gifting.html
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