Seventeen Energy Companies Purchase Licenses under the Katz Portfolio of Patents Which Cover Customer Service Operations

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--It was announced today that seventeen of the nation’s energy and utility companies have purchased licenses under the patent portfolio held by Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P. and licensed through A2D, L.P.

These separate licenses cover services offered by each of the companies in the “Energy and Utility Services” field of use. These services, including power outage reporting and customer service, are delivered through automated systems as well as the combination of automated systems and live agents. Other terms of the licenses were not disclosed.

The companies include:

• American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states and is based in Columbus, Ohio.
• Aquila, Inc. (NYSE:ILA) owns electric power generation and operates electric and natural gas transmission and distribution networks servicing approximately 900,000 customers in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, Kansas City, Missouri.
• CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) is a domestic energy delivery company that includes electric transmission & distribution, natural gas distribution, competitive natural gas sales and services, interstate pipelines and field services operations and is headquartered in Houston.
• CMS Energy Corporation (NYSE: CMS) is a Jackson, Michigan-based company that has as its primary business operations an electric and natural gas utility, natural gas pipeline systems, and independent power generation.
• Commonwealth Edison, ComEd, is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC). ComEd is responsible for maintaining more than 82,000 miles of power lines that make up the electric transmission and distribution system in Northern Illinois. ComEd also provides service to approximately 3.8 million customers across Northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state’s population.
• Dominion Resources, Inc. (NYSE: D) is one of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy and is headquartered in Richmond, VA.
• Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) is one of the largest electric power companies in the United States, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• OGE Energy Corp. OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE:OGE) and its subsidiary, Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company (OG&E), both headquartered in Oklahoma City, serve more than 755,000 retail customers in Oklahoma and western Arkansas.
• Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC is a regulated electric distribution and transmission business that uses superior asset management skills to provide reliable electricity delivery to consumers. Oncor operates the largest distribution and transmission system in Texas, providing power to 3 million electric delivery points over more than 102,000 miles of distribution and 14,000 miles of transmission lines. While Oncor is a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corp., Oncor is a separate entity that reports to a separate Board that is comprised of a majority of independent directors.
• PECO serves 1.6 million electric and 480,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania and has about 2,500 employees. Based in Philadelphia, PECO is the state's largest utility. PECO is an electric and natural gas utility subsidiary of Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC).
• Pepco Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: POM) headquartered in Washington, D.C. is one of the largest energy delivery companies in the Mid-Atlantic region, serving about 1.8 million customers in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland and New Jersey.
• Three subsidiaries of PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL) - PPL Electric Utilities Corporation, PPL Gas Utilities Corporation and PPL Solutions, LLC. PPL Corporation is an energy and utility holding company headquartered in Allentown, PA. Through its subsidiaries, PPL generates and sells energy in key U.S. markets, and delivers electricity to about 4 million customers in Pennsylvania and the United Kingdom.
• Reliant Energy, Inc. (NYSE: RRI) based in Houston, Texas, provides electricity and energy services to retail and wholesale customers. In Texas, the company provides service to approximately 1.8 million retail electricity customers. Reliant also serves customers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois and New York.
• San Diego Gas & Electric, SDG&E, is a regulated public utility that provides safe and reliable energy service to 3.4 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and more than 830,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties.
• Southern California Gas Company is the nation’s largest distributor of natural gas with 20.03 million customers in over 500 communities across central and Southern California.
• Southern Company (NYSE:SO) is one of the largest generators of electricity in the nation, serving both regulated and competitive markets across the southeastern United States and is headquartered in Atlanta.
• TXU Energy Retail Company LLC is a market-leading competitive retailer that provides electricity and related services to more than 2.1 million electricity customers in Texas. TXU Energy offers a variety of innovative products and solutions, allowing both its residential and business customers to choose options that best meet their needs, including competitively priced electricity service plans, innovative energy efficiency options, renewable energy programs and other electricity-related products and services.

The technologies in the licensed patents were invented by Ronald A. Katz. His pioneering efforts created one of the first, if not the first, inbound computerized call centers in 1961 when he formed Telecredit, Inc., the nation’s first on-line real time credit and check cashing authorization system. He was awarded a patent as co-inventor of that technology.

In the mid 1980s, Mr. Katz started work on interactive call processing patents. Within a few years, he entered into a joint venture with American Express to implement the call processing technologies on an unprecedented scale, drawing up plans for a ten thousand port voice response system to be located in the center of the United States.

By 1989, the company that was Mr. Katz’s brainchild had become “Call Interactive,” a joint venture between American Express Information Services Company and AT&T Corp. This company, in its various forms, has been practicing the technologies found in this group of patents continuously since 1988. Today, the company is known as First Data Voice Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of First Data Corporation.

The patents held by Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P., cover a wide range of interactive technology including automated forms of: customer service, securities trading, merchandising, prepaid services, prescription refill service, telephone conferences, registration, home shopping, as well as functions involved in securing information from databases by telephone, interactive cable transactions, and various other uses of toll free and local numbers.

Ronald A. Katz stated, “From fast and efficient power outage reporting to round the clock customer care, the energy and utility industry has embraced the technologies in this portfolio of patents. We welcome this extraordinary collection of companies to the large number of industry leaders with intellectual property expertise who have purchased licenses under these patents.”

There are over 250 companies with license rights under this portfolio, including over 45 energy and utility companies. Companies with license rights under this portfolio include: Advanta Corp., Alltel Corporation, American Century, American Express, Amtrak, AT&T Inc., Avis Budget Group, Inc., Avon Products, Inc., Bank of America Corporation, Capital One Services Inc., Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Comerica Inc., Continental Airlines, Dell Inc., Delta Air Lines, Inc., Discover Financial Services, Edward D. Jones & Co., Experian, Express Scripts, First Data Corporation, FirstMerit Corporation, The Gallup Organization, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hilton Hotels Corporation, Household International, Inc., HSBC Bank USA, ING North America Insurance Corp., International Business Machines (IBM), Kaiser Permanente Insurance Co., KeyCorp, Kohl's Corporation, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, MCI Inc., Mellon Financial Corporation, Merck & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., Metris Companies Inc., Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, New York Life Insurance Company, OppenheimerFunds, Inc., Premier Global Services, Inc., Principal Financial Group, Inc., Prudential Financial, Inc., Qwest Communications International Inc., QVC, Inc., Regions Financial Corporation, Safeway Inc., Sears, Roebuck and Co., ShopKo Stores, Sprint Corporation, Sunoco, Inc., SUPERVALU INC., TD Banknorth Inc., T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., T-Mobile USA, United Air Lines, Inc., Verizon California Inc., Wachovia Corporation, Walgreen Co., Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, Webster Financial Corporation, WellPoint, Inc., Wells Fargo & Company, West Corporation and Zions Bancorporation.