TransPerfect and MotionPoint patent clash to be examined by judge A US judge will rule this week on an patent infringement lawsuit that could have important repercussions for the global websites operated by big brands. The judge is due to consider legal arguments on Thursday from TransPerfect and MotionPoint, two rivals that provide the language translation technology and services used by many large companies. TransPerfect won a federal trial in Oakland California in July, when the jury decided that a key website translation patent it owned was valid and had been infringed by MotionPoint. The jury also found that three patents asserted by MotionPoint were invalid, and determined that even if those patents were valid, TransPerfect did not infringe them. The court, however, has yet to decide on any damages to be awarded to TransPerfect and whether an injunction to block further MotionPoint infringement of TransPerfect's patent, among other things, is appropriate, said Douglas Lumish, of Latham & Watkins lead attorney for TransPerfect. MotionPoint, founded in 2000, counts Delta, Victoria's Secret and Ford among its clients. The venture-capital backed start-up did not respond to requests for comment on the case. California-based TransPerfect has been owned and operated by its original founders, Phil Shawe and Liz Elting, co-chief executives of the company. It is the world's largest privately held language translation services and technology company with annual revenues of about $340m, more than 2,000 employees and clients which include Gap, Hilton Hotels, Marriott Hotels, the US Postal Service and Volkswagen. The legal dispute between the two companies started when MotionPoint lawyers sent TransPerfect a threatening letter in December of 2009, and escalated when MotionPoint began to make threats and insinuations that TransPerfect and other competitors infringed their intellectual property. Those actions prompted TransPerfect to seek relief in the form of a declaratory judgment, which was filed in June of 2010. We didn't start this fight, but we simply couldn't take a passive stance any longer while knowing that there was nothing new about MotionPoint's patents, technology, or service offerings. The jury made it clear that TransPerfect doesn't infringe MotionPoint's patents, and more importantly, their asserted patents are not valid," Mr Shawe said. Moreover, TransPerfect could not let its own intellectual property rights be ignored by that very same competitor. "The jury sided with TransPerfect on every significant issue it was asked to consider," said Phil Shawe, who described the verdict as "a sweeping victory."