Palm, Inc. announced that the U.S. District Court in Rochester, N.Y., rejected a recent motion made by Xerox Corporation related to a claim of patent infringement. The court refused to halt the sale of Palm Powered(TM) handhelds in the United States and, further, rejected Xerox' effort to set a trial date to determine damages Xerox claims it is owed. Calling the latter motion "premature," the court noted that Palm's appeal of the decision is still pending. The court actions occurred late Friday, Feb. 22.

Xerox had filed a lawsuit in 1997 alleging Palm's use of Graffiti(R) handwriting symbols violates Xerox' U.S. Patent No. 5,596,656 relating to computerized handwriting recognition. Palm maintains that it does not infringe the Xerox patent and that the patent is invalid.

"We intend to pursue our appeal vigorously and have excellent arguments to support our view," said Eric Benhamou, chairman and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc. "For thousands of years, people have been creating writing symbols. Xerox doesn't own the alphabet.

"Numerous handwriting-recognition technologies have long been available, some costing pennies per unit," Benhamou said. "Graffiti is only a tiny fraction of the software experience that drives the existing 21 million Palm Powered products."

As is common in such cases, the court has required Palm to post security until its appeal can be heard.