Excentus Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit
against Kroger After Months of Negotiations Fail
to Reach Long-Term Agreement
March 10, 2010 09:04 AM Eastern Time
IRVING, Texas--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Excentus Corporation announced that it filed a lawsuit yesterday
against The Kroger Co. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas, alleging willful
patent infringement. The lawsuit seeks injunctive and equitable relief along with unspecified damages.
"Kroger contacted us in October 2008 immediately following our acquisition of the AutoGas patents. They wanted
to resume patent licensing discussions which had occurred with AutoGas prior to Excentus closing the transaction to
purchase the AutoGas patents," said Dickson Perry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Excentus. "We were
able to reach a mutual accord with Kroger last year related to our patents and obliged their request for a time to
resolve future plans for the Kroger fuel rewards programs. The Kroger fuel rewards programs have varied from
market to market. Since then, we have watched Kroger increase its fuel rewards marketing efforts, which included
enhancements by Kroger in Safeway’s markets. We believe these efforts were deliberate attempts to take advantage
of our prior lawsuit against Safeway. Further, Kroger has continued to enhance and expand its program by offering
the capability to stack multiple fuel rewards together and by offering third party redemption. We felt like we had
more than obliged Kroger’s request for more time and recently asked that they reengage with us to enter into a long-
term licensing agreement, but based on the reaction we received from Kroger, they left us no other choice but to
seek court action to protect our interests.”
“We have worked diligently with those interested in resolving past and future issues with our patents as evidenced by
our recent agreement with Safeway and our agreements with others,” added Brandon Logsdon, Executive Vice-
President and G