Sep. 23, 2004 - NASHUA, N.H. - Two locally based companies that provide pay-as-you-go Internet access in airports are suing a Texas company for patent infringement.

PowerOasis Inc. and PowerOasis Networks LLC, both privately held companies with headquarters in Nashua, filed a joint lawsuit in United States District Court in Massachusetts on Monday accusing Wayport Inc. of Austin, Texas, of infringing on two patents.

The patents cover pay-as-you-go access to telecommunications terminals that work like vending machines for the Internet, dispensing wired or wireless Internet access for a fee charged to a customer's credit card.

The suit seeks a preliminary injunction to stop Wayport from providing pay-as-you-go Internet access in airports, hotels and other public places. The suit also seeks unspecified monetary damages.

In a statement e-mailed to the Telegraph on Wednesday, Wayport said that it had not been formally served with a lawsuit.

"In fact, we had never even been contacted by PowerOasis before they filed this suit � but we have obtained a copy of the documents and begun our review," the company said. "We believe that the claims made are without merit and intend to vigorously contest them."

Both PowerOasis and Wayport are fee-for-service companies, but the problem, according to PowerOasis, is that Wayport uses the pay-as-you-go method the local company says it patented.

The company's technology was invented in 1995 by Charles C. Schelberg Jr. of Milford, and later developed with his business partner, Thomas M. Duff Jr. of Nashua, who is president of PowerOasis Inc.

"We were the pioneers of bringing this type of service to the business traveling public," Schelberg said Wednesday. "That's the reason we patented it."

Patent features include a machine for vending Internet access to a customer, a payment mechanism for receiving payment, and an electronic circuit for determining when the transaction is done, among other things.

"They have all of the features of our patent buried in their technology," Duff added. "When you go through it on a functional comparison, their product is exactly the same as ours."

Wayport provides high-speed wireless and wired Internet service in more than 3,000 locations, including hotels, airports and McDonald's restaurants nationwide, according to the company Web site.

PowerOasis said its data ports are used in 21 airports in 16 states � including Manchester Airport � and in other public buildings in five states.

In court documents, PowerOasis said Wayport took away PowerOasis' ability to sell and expand its services in airports and other locations, including hotels, "to an extent that cannot be calculated, but that has severely hampered PowerOasis in its effort to expand its business."

PowerOasis had 31 wired Internet access vending machines at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in December 1999, but that number dropped to 11 after Wayport announced its wireless Internet access offerings on July 20, 2000, according to court documents.

"If Wayport is not preliminarily enjoined," the suit states, "much larger players, like Wayport, will move in to occupy the field and to squeeze out the real innovator, PowerOasis . . . (which) may well be forced out of business."

Schelberg said PowerOasis is struggling to the point where some company officers have already pulled themselves away from the payroll.

PowerOasis, founded in 1996, has four U.S. patents. The latest patent, which is part of the lawsuit, was issued on April 13.

After that patent was issued, Duff said PowerOasis began looking closely at Wayport's business earlier this year.

On May 24, PowerOasis said that Wayport provided wireless Internet access to a customer in the lobby of the Wyndham Boston Hotel on a daily pay-as-you-go basis.

On June 3, PowerOasis said Wayport did the same for a guest in a hotel room of the Wyndham Hotel in Andover, Mass.

PowerOasis responded with the suit, Duff said.

"After we got our fourth patent, we realized that there were people out there stomping on the patent, and we had to bring suit," Schelberg said.

PowerOasis is the exclusive operator in certain venues under license from PowerOasis Networks, a limited liability company, which owns the patents.

-----To see more of The Telegraph, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nashuatelegraph.com

(c) 2004, The Telegraph, Nashua, N.H. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail [email protected].