GigaMedia is facing the prospect of being delisted from the Nasdaq Global Market. The part owner of Everest Gaming has been performing woefully for the past few months with their share price below the minimum $1.00 per share for the last 30 consecutive business days. In the wake of this, they received a letter from Nasdaq detailing that they had broken Nasdaq Marketplace Rule 5450(a)(1) (the “Minimum Bid Price Rule.”) The company, under Nasdaq Marketplace Rule 5810(c)(3)(A), has been granted 180 calendar days to regain its footing above the $1.00 mark. It must be above that threshold for 10 consecutive business days by March 26, 2012 or find itself officially delisted. It’s a far cry from their predictions of a fruitful 2011 and comes after they were sued for $40m only a couple of months ago. Curling up into ball could never sound more inviting for the Gigamen.
International Game Technology and Aristocrat have resolved a patent dispute that saw both sides claiming for damages. The case dated back to 2006 when Aristocrat sued IGT in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. According to the release, the first dispute was on patents related to “multi-level progressives such as Aristocrat’s Hyperlink and IGT’s Fort Knox.” IGT then sued Aristocrat last year in the Central District of California (you’re following, right? Good!) for breach of patents related to “the authentication of software in slot machines.” Not wanting to be outdone, Aristocrat then sued IGT AU in New South Wales, Australia over a patent “related to a side bet feature on slot machines.”
The two have agreed to cross-license each other and they will have the right to offer all products that were subject of the patent claims. It’s never nice to see patent issues affecting the gaming industry. Although, at least it’s not another time when our friend the patent troll pops up. I wonder where Scott is these days? We did find this when we were looking for him. No word whether it’s him though.
