One of the patents, U.S. Patent No. 5,809,336, "High Performance Microprocessor Having Variable Speed System Clock" (the '336 Patent), is listed in the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), along with several other patents, as having been co-invented by Russell H. Fish, III and Charles H. Moore. Some years ago, Fish's interests in these patents were transferred to the Fish Family Trust, then to Nanotronics Corporation; then to Patriot, which now owns 100% of Fish's interests in these patents, including the '336 Patent. Discovery in the inventorship litigation strongly suggests that Fish was the sole inventor of the '336 Patent. If so, he was then its sole owner and Patriot is now its sole owner.

Also as a result of discovery, Patriot has reason to believe that Moore and his business colleagues are selling and marketing interests in the '336 Patent with inaccurate claims of ownership and inventorship about the '336 Patent.

These claims are important to shareholders because they involve the potential damage claims in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more.

In his recent testimony, Fish described the invention of the '336 Patent, known colloquially as the "Fish Clock," as follows:

Question: . . . As to the Fish Clock, what you've called the "Fish Clock," is that something that you told Mr. Higgins [patent counsel for Fish and Moore] at the time he was preparing the patent application was your sole invention and not the joint invention of yours and Mr. Moore?

Answer: . . . the day before the patent filing, he [Higgins] said, "Have you got anything else you want to put in?" I said, "Well, I got this idea for this clock." He said, "Well, tell me about it." And I told him about the ring oscillator ['336 Patent]. And he said, "Go write it up! Bring it back."

Fish drew a diagram and prepared the descriptive text on his own machine and delivered it to Higgins the next day for immediate filing in the PTO.

A document headed, "Computer Cowboys," Moore's dba name, and appearing to Fish from its content to have been authored by Moore, contains the following statement: "Central to the custom chip is a high-speed on-chip clock. This is a simple ring oscillator suggested by Russell Fish. It has several advantages over an external clock." Patriot believes that this evidence, especially when combined with other evidence in Patriot's possession, including other statements by Moore, will prove that Fish was the sole inventor of the '336 Patent and that Patriot, therefore, is today its sole owner.