SAN DIEGO, March 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ameranth, Inc. announced today that it has defeated the latest infringing Defendants attempt to invalidate its award-winning `077 patent. In an order issued by Judge Sabraw, Ameranth was granted 'summary judgement' that the copycat patent owned by Quikorder/IPDEV was entirely invalid, thus again confirming the validity of the '077 patent. IPDEV, the patent holding subsidiary of Quikorder Inc. had secretly copied the claims of Ameranth's '077 patent into a patent application that it had acquired which was pending in 2012. It did so without alerting Ameranth and without even seeking or obtaining concurrence from the actual inventors of that acquired patent application. This was a blatant attempt to misappropriate Ameranth's inventive technology for IPDEV/Quikorder. This effort was highly inappropriate and Judge Sabraw's ruling ended it - with a complete and total invalidation of the entire IPDEV '449 copycat patent.

"We are very pleased to have defeated Quikorder/IPDEV's attempt to have copied our '077 claims and effectively attempt to misappropriate Ameranth's inventions for themselves. This strategic victory removes the last obstacle between now and the Pizza Defendant trials in September and those trials will be moving forward even more rapidly now. With the trial dates now firmly set, Ameranth is very confident that the juries will recognize and further confirm the validity of its patents - just as the Patent Office has done over and over again - and soon award Ameranth the substantial damages that it is owed for their longstanding intentional infringement of its `077 patent," stated Vern Yates, Ameranth's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

The Pizza Company Defendants will proceed to trial first. Pizza Hut and their technology supplier, Quikorder Inc. of Chicago, Illinois will go to trial first, starting on September 4, 2018. Quikorder also provides its technology to Godfather's Pizza, Casey's General Stores and more. Papa John's Inc., and Domino's Pizza Inc., will follow within two weeks of the completion of the first trial.

The Food Ordering companies trials' start in December 2018 and Grubhub Holdings Inc., which now owns Seamless Inc., will proceed to trial first on December 4, 2018. Mobo/OLO, Onosys/Splickit, and Starbucks will then promptly follow.

The Hotel Defendants, Travel Aggregator Defendants, Ticketing Defendants and the Misc. Defendants will proceed to trial in 2019. These additional defendants include: Marriott Hotels, Hilton Hotels, Starwood Hotels, Best Western Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com, Hotel Tonight, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, Kayak, TicketMaster, Live Nation, Stubhub, Fandango, Ticketfly, Eventbrite, Ticketbiscuit, Apple, Oracle/Micros, ATX- Tabbed Out, Agilysis, Usablenet and Opentable.

Based upon (1) Ameranth's well established patent licensing rates, (2) the patent validity period of the `077 patent, from March 27, 2012 through September 21, 2019 and (3) publicly available financial information only, it is estimated that many of the Public Defendant Companies will owe very significant damages for their infringement of the `077 patent.

Further, Ameranth has two additional issued patents, 9,009,060,and 9,747,651 and another two patents pending. These additional issued/pending patents have up to another decade or more of patent validity life. Ameranth's newest patent, the `651 patent was just awarded to Ameranth on August 29, 2017. Its '(IAA) - Intelligent Automated Assistant' inventive functionality is expected to soon become widely used in the Hospitality Market, as 'Chatbots' and other related 'artificial intelligence' functionality continues to expand and evolve.

Ameranth's direct 'data synchronization' licenses now number 45 (with dozens of 'sub-licensees'), - (representing/including more than 25 nationally recognized, large restaurant chains including Dunkin Donuts and Taco Bell), (totaling more than 50,000 deployed locations, which are in various stages of roll-out). Ameranth has also signed patent license agreements with Jersey Mike's Subs, BJ's Pizza, Tilster Inc, Xpient Solutions Inc, EMN8, ORDIT, Cognizant Inc., Monkeymedia, Splickit, Radiant, Red-Fork, Menusoft, Nu-Order, Tap to Eat, (RRT) Restaurant Revolution Technologies, Cardfree, Netwaiter, Brink Software, Savory Mobile, Skywire Media, Cardfree, Chownow, Compelcart, Xpient, Munchaway, OrderBee LLC, Meplus1 LLC, Par Inc., Squirrel Inc., Subtledata, Comcash, Snapfinger, My Check LLC, Fork LLC as well as others and is in discussions to provide licenses to several additional hospitality industry product/service providers. Further, many other companies in the hospitality market that are now deploying mobile ordering/payments and related functionalities have yet to license Ameranth's patents.

About Ameranth, Inc.:

Ameranth, Inc. ( http://www.ameranth.com) is a recognized leader in the hospitality technology market, having been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, USA Today, Business Week, US News & World Report, Nation's Restaurant News, Hospitality Technology, TIME, CNNfn, San Diego Union Tribune, and numerous other prestigious publications. Ameranth has also been awarded or participated in twelve technology/"best product" awards.

Tel: (888) AMERANTH   Fax: (866) 268-9870- (www.ameranth.com)

SOURCE Ameranth, Inc.