nasdaq asur industry patent monetization headquarters austin tx united states key people pat goepel chief executive officer number of employees 130 1 website asuresoftware.com asure software is a software company offering software as a service saas solutions to approximately 5 000 clients worldwide . in recent years the company has acquired several businesses spurring the organization s revenue growth which now exceeds 20 million annually . prior to september 13 2007 the company was known as forgent networks . critics claim asure profits primarily as a patent troll . 2 3 it also has a software division netsimplicity which specializes in room scheduling and fixed assets management software . citation needed effective september 13 2007 forgent acquired iemployee . 4 on march 21 2016 asure software announced that it had acquired mangrove employer services which developed software relating to human resource management . asure began massive layoffs in june 2016 of previous mangrove employees . 5 contents 1 patents and litigation 1.1 jpeg 1.2 digital video recorders 1.3 asure software 1.4 proxy fight 2 see also 3 references 4 external links patents and litigation edit this section s use of external links may not follow wikipedia s policies or guidelines . please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references . february 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message jpeg edit in 2002 while known as forgent the company claimed that through its subsidiary compression labs it owned the patent rights on the jpeg image compression standard u.s. patent 4 698 672 which is widely used on the world wide web . critics claim that the legal principle of laches hence not asserting one s rights in a timely manner invalidates forgent s claims on the patent . critics also noted the similarity to unisys attempts to assert rights over the gif image compression standard via lzw patent enforcement . 6 the jpeg committee responded to forgent s claims stating that it believes prior art exists that would invalidate forgent s claims and launched a search for prior art evidence . 7 in april 2004 forgent stated that 30 companies had already paid us 90 million in royalties . on april 23 lawsuits were filed against 31 companies including adobe systems apple computer and ibm for infringement of their patent . on september 26 2005 axis communications one of the defendants announced a settlement with compression labs inc. ; the terms were not disclosed . as of late october 2005 six companies were known to have licensed the patent from forgent including adobe macromedia axis color dreams and research in motion . on may 25 2006 the united states patent and trademark office rejected the broadest part of forgent networks claims stating prior art submitted by the public patent foundation invalidated those claims . 8 pubpat s executive director dan ravicher says that the submitters knew about the prior art but failed to tell the uspto about it . 9 on august 11 2006 forgent networks received notice from the nasdaq stock market regarding non compliance with the minimum bid price rule which can lead to delisting before coming back into compliance in january 2007 . 10 the company issued a press release on november 1 2006 stating that they settled their remaining claims against roughly 60 companies . it was reported that the settlement came to 8 million and was paid by among other companies dell hewlett packard ibm microsoft and sun microsystems . citation needed digital video recorders edit forgent networks shifted its focus to u.s. patent 6 285 746 relating to a computer controlled video system allowing playback during recording . this technology is very common in modern day digital video recorders . while the patent was filed in 1991 the first litigation was initiated in 2005 . on may 21 2007 u.s. district court of eastern texas ruled in favor of echostar communications corporation on grounds that the patent is invalid . 11 asure software edit after forgent networks acquired iemployee and subsequently changed its name to asure software the website of the combined company no longer listed information related to the two patents 672 and 746 compared to the old forgent networks website . 12 proxy fight edit in 2008 the company was the target of a proxy fight launched by pinnacle fund pinnacle and red oak partners managed by david sandberg who initially proposed a slate of 6 directors to replace the company s board . after a period of negotiations which included the unrelated resignation of one member of the board a slate of 5 new directors was elected on august 28 2009 to replace the previous board . citation needed see also edit jpeg 2000 references edit asure software an undervalued saas growth story with substantial upside potential . retrieved february 2 2015 . tuesday business roundup . may 29 2007 . retrieved may 29 2007 . the jpeg enforcer . february 20 2006 . retrieved may 29 2007 . company press release . phx.corporate ir.net . retrieved august 8 2011 . asure software acquires mangrove software asure software . www.asuresoftware.com . retrieved 2016 03 22 . forgent sues over jpeg technology patent . april 25 2004 . retrieved may 29 2007 . concerning recent patent claims . july 19 2002 . retrieved may 29 2007 . forgent jpeg related patent . retrieved may 29 2007 . uspto broadest claims forgent asserts against jpeg standard invalid . may 26 2006 . retrieved may 29 2007 . forgent networks brushes off delisting fears . january 5 2007 . archived from the original on october 7 2007 . retrieved may 29 2007 . echostar defeats forgent s patent suit . seekingalpha.com . may 22 2007 . retrieved may 29 2007 . workforce optimization software . asure software . retrieved august 8 2011 . external links edit forgent networks forgent related news stories at the data compression news blog http www.asuresoftware.com about us news item asure software acquires mangrove software retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title asure software & oldid 728579314 categories patent monetization companies of the united statessoftware companies based in texascompanies based in austin texashidden categories use mdy dates from november 2011all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from march 2016wikipedia external links cleanup from february 2016wikipedia spam cleanup from february 2016 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 6 july 2016 at 07 18 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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